


Eye of the Storm

by lonestarbabe (neverfeltlesscool), Pigeonsplotinsecrecy



Category: 9-1-1: Lone Star (TV 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anxiety, Can be Read as Standalones, Depression, Domestic Tarlos, Eating Disorders, M/M, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, The Reyes Family - Freeform, complicated family relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:28:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 27,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23762320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neverfeltlesscool/pseuds/lonestarbabe, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pigeonsplotinsecrecy/pseuds/Pigeonsplotinsecrecy
Summary: Love isn’t easy. It’s complicated by storms that rush in and try to tear you apart from the ones you love. It’s messy, and it’s monotonous. It’s heartbreaking. It’s a battle. But it’s tantalizing and once you’re in it, you’ll endure all the hardship in hopes that you’ll find some light. Carlos knows T.K. is hurting and he just wants to help without losing himself because Carlos has storms of his own to face.*Chapters can stand independently, but they are also interwoven so they work best as a full work*
Relationships: Carlos Reyes/TK Strand
Comments: 36
Kudos: 85
Collections: L O N E  S T A R





	1. Daily Battles

It’s nine AM when Carlos wakes to a familiar rumbling, low but roaring in the silence of his bedroom. The sound sends a rush of dread through him. He’s not ready to face the morning in her bright, confrontational glory. He wants to tuck his eyes into his pillowcase and shove away the rays of sun urging him to deal with all the problems he’d tucked away into their dirty cots the night before. Unfortunately, putting problems to bed doesn’t make those problems stay in bed. They’re like little, ferocious kids on Christmas morning, hopping up and down around him until he opens his eyes and faces them. He knows they’re looming over him. Yes, the enemy troops are already up, stomping boot-print impressions into the fresh soil that grounds each new day.

Carlos used to love mornings just before he got out of bed— the solitude, the peace, the time to think before of angry thoughts barraged his mind— but, now, half the time there’s another person sleeping in his bed, and it’s changed things. Love always does. The changes are mostly for the better. He loves having someone on the other side of the bed, balancing the mattress so it doesn’t feel quite so lopsided, but there have been hard changes as well. His mornings have become thunderous, and the rumbling is an ominous warning of what’s to come before the inevitable downpour that causes anxiety to pummel against Carlos’ brain.

With exhaustion tugging at his eyelids, he’s nearly runs away from the chaos for just thirty minutes more because he sure could use the extra sleep after the week he’s had. The rumbling is still faint enough that he could pretend he didn’t hear it at all, close his eyes, and escape to unconsciousness, but waiting only makes the noise crescendo, marching up closer to his ears until it’s too late to prepare for what’s coming. If he lets himself ignore the signs and goes back to sleep, he’ll wake up with the storm directly over him, beating down on his bare skin in large, acidic droplets that render him helpless with an itchy need to do _something_. You can’t retreat when the enemy will only keep chasing you as it destroys the person you love more than you hate waking up tired.

T.K. is awake already, alert and restless with his bleary eyes staring at the ceiling. Stifling a groan that would challenge the rumbling in its intensity, Carlos rolls over to face T.K. “What do you want for breakfast?” The question should be uncomplicated, but it falls heavily between them like the impatient hush after an unresolved fight. Another rumble hits Carlos’ ears, and he can feel it vibrating through him. “T.K.?”

As he ponders the question, T.K. doesn’t look at Carlos. His hand is pushing against his abdomen to quiet his stomach. The rumbling doesn’t stop. “I’m not hungry.” Carlos doesn’t know why he bothers to ask. The answer is always the same.

Carlos turns away with a huff that he can’t constrain, hating that the tug of war has already begun. He pushed back his worries and focuses on T.K. “Don’t be mad,” T.K. pleads, eyes already defeated even though they haven’t left bed yet. Carlos wishes his bed could be a safe oasis away from the friction and fear.

The answer to the question doesn’t matter, anyway. He knows what T.K. likes. Well, what he’ll tolerate. Carlos turns back to face T.K. because he shouldn’t be mad about something that isn’t anyone’s fault. Shouldn’t never defines what people are, though, so Carlos feels the tickling of erratic emotions electrifying his core.

“I’m not mad.” He sounds like a broken record. A lying, broken record because Carlos _is_ mad. He’s always so mad at this excruciating situation. A dull hum of generalized rage incessantly gnaws at him. It’s only there because it’s easier to be angry than to be terrified. Terror won’t make this situation any better. Neither will anger, but, for whatever reason, anger seems like the saner choice. Anger doesn’t lodge his heart in his throat like worry does. He knows worry well, and it won't help him with this.

“I’ll make you oatmeal,” Carlos says, moving from the bed to his feet, choosing not to neglect his morning chores. Once he’s up, he won’t let himself return to the safe refuge of his bed no matter how tempting it is to hide under the covers. Once he’s awake, it’s hard to sleep. He watches as T.K.’s face scrunches, lips pressed together. He prays this won’t become a fight, but they’ve fought over less.

“Don’t use milk,” is what T.K. says. Not fighting words, but a warning. “I’ll know if you use milk.” Carlos had tried that trick only once, and T.K. had taken one bite before rejecting oatmeal altogether, even when Carlos attempted remaking it with water. He’d refused Carlos’ cooking for two weeks after that, and Carlos isn’t going to risk it again.

“No sugar either, I know.” No salt, no fat, no anything that might make the oatmeal taste good. T.K. lives on oatmeal, brown rice, certain fruits, and vegetables, all of which he likes to keep as plain as possible. He’ll eat other things if he must, but it takes convincing and luck.

“You don’t have to make it for me. I can do it myself.” They’ve been doing this for a while, but T.K. still doesn’t fully trust Carlos to make his meals right, but Carlos is insistent. He wouldn’t admit it, but it makes him feel better to make T.K.’s food. He’s seen how it takes T.K. a long, obsessive time to prepare anything, so it’s easier for both if Carlos does it. Some days—bad days— T.K. won’t relinquish that control.

“It’s okay. I don’t mind.” _I don’t mind_ is their way of saying, _Please, let me._ “You can make the coffee.” T.K. would drink only coffee if he could.

“Coffee,” T.K. purrs and something other than gloom flashes on his face. Carlos loves when he can make T.K. look that way, even when it’s through evoking the good name of coffee. That delighted expression makes Carlos skin feel warm and makes the knots in his shoulders untangle enough that the situation doesn’t feel so perilous. He remembers why he puts up with the chaos. He remembers that the person he fell in love with is in there, trapped between layers of fear and disorder, and that little glimpse of T.K. is his coffee.

In response, Carlos can’t help but beam. “I knew that would send a jolt of energy through you.”

T.K. looks up, still smiling at the thought of his morning cup of joe. He flips over once so that he’s on Carlos’ side of the bed and reaches his arm out. “Help me up?” Carlos takes a cold, dry hand in his and gently guides T.K. off the side of the bed so that he’s standing. They wait a moment to make sure T.K. isn’t lightheaded, and Carlos thanks the heavens that T.K. seems to be steady on his feet today. Slowly, Carlos leads T.K. into the kitchen by the hand, where they both head in different directions to start their assigned tasks. Carlos pours T.K. a glass of water and then himself one so it doesn’t seem like he’s going out of his way to keep T.K. hydrated. T.K. probably knows what Carlos is doing, but it helps to maintain the illusion. T.K. ignores the water, and hurries to get the coffee brewing. Other than when he’s at the firehouse, Carlos rarely sees T.K. work with such speed and precision as he does when he prepares coffee.

Carlos works on T.K.’s oatmeal with equal diligence, and he can feel green eyes analyzing his process to make sure everything is done right. Breakfast preparation is a delicate procedure. Carlos fills a small measuring cup with oats, and he knows that T.K. is itching to have him put it on the food scale to make sure it’s not too much, but Carlos wants to wean T.K. off needing so much precision. “Is this okay?” Carlos asks, showing T.K. the filled measuring cup, and T.K. shakes his head.

“Will you take a spoonful out?” T.K. asks in a small voice. “Just to be sure.” T.K. isn’t asking for a lot, but it feels like a major concession. Though, it’s not much of a choice because if Carlos is cooperative, T.K. is more likely to eat the food. If he isn’t, T.K. may not eat at all. Carlos shouldn’t give in, but he’s held hostage in this as much as T.K. There are certain rules he has to play by while others have some flexibility. The art is knowing when to push and when to give in. Carlos never expected breakfast to feel like a game of Risk.

“Only if you eat all of it.” Bargaining doesn’t do much good, but Carlos can’t relinquish all resistance. He’d have to fight his very core to not at least try. Maybe he’s setting himself up for disappointment.

“No promises,” T.K. says, but Carlos removes a tablespoon from the measuring cup anyway. It’s a shitty deal, but he makes it because what’s one tablespoon in the grand scheme of things?

“Happy?” Carlos asks, trying to keep his tone level.

T.K. shrugs like he doesn’t care. He’s looking off to the hallway, mind clearly somewhere else. Carlos knows exactly where. “I’ll be back,” T.K. says and heads down the hallway to the bathroom, and it’s better that he goes now because then he won’t have an excuse to go there after.

Unavoidably, T.K.’s going to consult the bathroom scale because he can’t put anything into his body until he does. It’s another one of T.K.’s rules. If he doesn’t like the number, which he never does, his whole day could be ruined. Carlos tried getting rid of his scale, but T.K. had only gotten huffy and bought a new one to replace it, a fancier Bluetooth one that gave a bunch of useless stats on water weight and body fat. The numbers were all sent to an app on T.K.’s phone, giving him even more ability to obsess. The whole situation’s an example of how meddling can make things worse.

Several minutes later with no sign of T.K., Carlos has finished making the oatmeal and sets it on the table next to a bowl of fruit, which he’s packed as full as he can. He’s making eggs and toast for himself using the last two eggs and the tiny, end piece of bread. He feels bad eating these foods that T.K. won’t let himself have, but Carlos is so sick of oatmeal. He can barely stand to look at it let alone eat it.

Hearing footsteps against the floor, Carlos looks up from the pan to read T.K.’s face. He wants to know if this is going to be a bad day so he can adjust his strategy. They’re supposed to go to Carlos’ mother’s house for dinner, but if it’s a bad day, T.K. might not go at all, which would disappoint Carlos more than he’d ever tell T.K. Carlos just wants to be able to do normal boyfriend things with his boyfriend, but nothing about their relationship is normal because of the unwitting third party that has snuggled up in bed with them, holding a gun to their heads. T.K.’s face is impassive, so whatever the number is, it isn’t bad enough that he’s come out with red-rimmed eyes. Maybe it’s not a good day, but it’s not the worst one either, and Carlos can work with that.

T.K. says nothing as he pours them each a cup of coffee and downs the whole glass of water Carlos had poured for him and then pours another, taking a big gulp from that as well. “You’re going to make yourself sick.”

“I know what I’m doing,” is all T.K. says in response.

Carlos watches as T.K. sits down at his chair and makes no move to pick up his spoon. “You don’t have to wait for me.” But T.K. doesn’t move a muscle. Carlos flips his eggs and hears the toast pop. He butters the toast, and he swears he can see T.K. flinch at the sound of the knife scrape butter against the golden exterior of the bread. He removes the eggs from the pan, sliding them onto his plate and moving to the chair across from T.K. He takes a bite of his toast, and T.K. remains still. “You can eat now.” T.K. doesn’t need his permission, but he won’t eat without encouragement.

T.K. picks up his spoon, tapping it anxiously against the side of the bowl. He looks down at his meal with disgust. Carlos wonders if he’s sick of oatmeal too. “I think it’s cold.” T.K. puts his spoon down.

“The steam’s still coming out of it.”

“The texture looks weird,” T.K. pulls the pin and throws a new excuse at Carlos like it’s a grenade.

It’s a weak excuse, so Carlos evades it easily. “It looks like normal oatmeal, which you like.”

“I don’t want to be too full when we go to your mom’s. Your family likes to eat.” That was true. Food was a way of loving in the Reyes household. It had been since Carlos was little and his dad used to make the family meals after work. Carlos’ dad had been the best cook. His mom was a great cook as well, inheriting her own mother’s recipes and experimenting with new cuisines, but his dad could’ve opened a restaurant if he wanted. It’s no surprise that food has always been important to Carlos. He loves cooking and serving people his culinary creations, and it feels wrong that he can’t share that love with the man he loves. He can’t wait for a time when he can make T.K. a big meal and not have it be a big spectacle.

“Dinner is hours away.” Carlos’ eggs turn rubbery in his mouth, and he feels silly having to remind an adult that it is normal to eat three meals a day.

T.K. must see the impatience in Carlos’ eyes because he picks up the spoon again and dips it into the oatmeal, putting a measly amount into his mouth and chewing it for an awfully long time for something that is already so mushy. T.K. doesn’t lift his eyes from the food. “Tastes good, thank you.” Carlos could never stand oatmeal without any sweetness, but if T.K. will eat the most boring breakfast known to man, Carlos will prepare it for eternity.

“You’re welcome. Oatmeal has become one of my best delicacies,” Carlos tries to joke, and by the way T.K. tenses, Carlos worries that he’s somehow said the wrong thing. He does that a lot. He says the wrong thing without knowing what he said that was so wrong. He’s learning.

T.K. inhales and when he releases his breath, he’s thrown into a fit of giggles, and Carlos breathes out a held breath, giggling as well. The little release of pressure between them makes the whole room feel brighter. T.K. takes another bite of oatmeal, a little bigger than the last, and Carlos is overjoyed that he’s said something to warrant that response.

“You’re too good for me,” T.K. says when the smiles have faded, and it sounds too serious.

“Don’t say that.”

He pauses before a third bite, smaller than the last. “Someday, I’ll be the kind of man who deserves you.”

“You already do,” Carlos assures, putting his hand over T.K.’s right one. “I’m so lucky to have you. Really.” Looking at T.K.’s face, Carlos thinks the moment has become too sweet. T.K. doesn’t like sugar.

T.K. is unconvinced. “Whatever you say.”

“I mean it,” Carlos asserts. He’s never meant anything more.

T.K. taps his spoon in a second chorus against the bowl. The sound sends a surge of raw irritation through him that he tries to get in check. “Okay,” T.K. answers in his end-of-discussion tone.

Withholding a sigh, Carlos polishes off his last bite of food, washing it down with coffee while T.K. stares at his oatmeal as if the world is on fire and he’s the only firefighter left. He’s still not even half done with his meal, but Carlos doesn’t rush him.

“Mamá’s looking forward to seeing you.” Carlos tries not to let it become too quiet. He knows it helps T.K. to have some distraction when he’s eating.

“She hates me.” Carlos exhales. They’ve been through this before, but T.K. is still convinced that Carlos’ family hates him. Some of his siblings are prickly, especially his youngest sister, who gets territorial, but none of them hate him. They just don’t know him that well yet, partly because T.K. doesn’t act like himself when he’s around them. T.K. is always charming, but the parts of T.K. that Carlos loves most get lost beneath the people-pleasing T.K., who works so hard to be what he thinks other people want to see. In the process, he comes off as ingenuine, aloof, and overly confident.

Carlos’ family isn’t distrusting of T.K. because T.K. is weird. They think he is a snob who doesn’t like Ana’s meals. Carlos has never brought this point up because it would only make T.K. feel guilty. Ana’s not as dismayed by T.K.’s refusal to eat as Carlos’ siblings are. She’s taken his pickiness as a challenge to make a meal that T.K. loves. She’s been trying out all kinds of recipes, and she’s stubborn enough that she’ll keep trying until he finally does like something she puts in front of him.

“Stop. She doesn’t hate you.” Carlos’ mother doesn’t waste time hating people. She’d learned long not to waste her time on bad people long before Carlos was even born, and she’d taught that lesson to her kids. 

“She doesn’t think I’m good enough for you.”

“That’s not true.” His mother can be stern and demanding just as much as she can be gentle and understanding but only towards people who she thinks have potential.

Carlos can tell his mother cares about T.K. even if she doesn’t say it. She always asks him, “How is T.K.?” whenever they talk on the phone and sends food home for him when Carlos is over at her house. It’s a nice thought, even if Carlos is always the one who ends up eating the leftovers.

Ana Reyes wants T.K. to like her as much as T.K. wants her to like him. “She wouldn’t invite you over to family functions if she didn’t like you. She was never so welcoming to Andy.” Andy hadn’t been a bad guy, but he and Carlos hadn’t been compatible as romantic partners. They’d both been lonely and looking for someone to fill the time. Carlos’ mom had noticed the lack of deep affection right away, and she had made her disapproval of Andy clear. She’d always been perfectly civil to Andy, but she’d never gone out of her way for him or genuinely wondered how he was.

T.K. shakes his head. “Maybe I shouldn’t go tonight.”

“She doesn’t hate you,” Carlos’ voice is firmer. He’ll be so irate if T.K. backs out of this dinner.

“I just don’t think going would be a good idea.”

“You already said you’d go,” Carlos bites out.

“I’m not going to go where I’m not wanted.” They’re running circles around each other, and Carlos doesn’t have the patience to keep doing it. He’s getting dizzy and he needs to cut to the point before he falls on his ass from all the spinning.

“That’s such bullshit, and we both know it.” This isn’t about Carlos’ family. They both know that. “Is this about the food?” It’s a stupid question. It’s always about the food, but T.K. won’t admit that. In fact, T.K. very rarely talks about food, even though Carlos knows it’s the thing he thinks about the most.

“Your family is going to think I’m a freak. I mean, they probably already know that, but I don’t like to advertise it. I can’t be normal.”

“You’re not a freak.” He’s just having a hard time, a hard time that never seems to end, but T.K. isn’t a freak more than anyone else is a freak. Austin is weird, and they’re proud of it. Everyone has eccentricities, including Carlos’ family.

“I can’t go to that dinner and act normal.”

“You’ll be fine.”

“It takes me thirty minutes to finish a half-cup of oatmeal. That’s weird.” T.K. takes another painfully small bite to make the point. He grimaces as he swallows it. “I think I’m full.” He pushes the oatmeal away, still with a layer of oats half an inch thick on the bottom of the bowl, spread thin across the dish so it looks like there is less of it left than there is. This is not the battle to pick. This disorder is a war, but Carlos has to know when to fight and when to wave the white flag.

“Will you eat your fruit?” Carlos knows T.K.’s fruit preferences better than he knows his own. Fruit is usually okay for T.K., but he refuses to eat certain ones like bananas or pomegranates, and Carlos doesn’t know _why_. He just knows that if he gives T.K. a banana, it will go untouched and be the object of uneasy glances for the entirety of breakfast. Generally, the waterier the fruit, the better, but the math isn’t always quite so clear. Today, Carlos has given T.K. half a peach and a quarter of a grapefruit, which is as much as T.K. will accept. Carlos will eat the leftover pieces when he’s sure that T.K. won’t ask for more (he never does).

It’s a small blessing when T.K. doesn’t resist and eats the fruit. He’s still slow and deliberate, counting out the “damage” he’s doing to his body bite by bite, but he’s trying, and that’s really all Carlos ever asks of him.

“I’ll clean up,” T.K. says when the fruit is finally gone, gripping the empty fruit dish with white knuckles. They both need a few moments to themselves, and Carlos hates doing dishes, so he’s not going to reject T.K.’s offer.

“Thank you,” Carlos replies, getting up and kissing T.K. on the forehead. “You’re okay?” He doesn’t want to leave if he’s still needed.

T.K. nods. His voice is shaky, “I will be.”

“I’m here if you need me.”

“I know,” and it feels like progress that T.K. doesn’t say, “I won’t need you.” Because like it or not, people do need each other. Carlos needs T.K. just as much as T.K. needs Carlos, and that’s why they make such a good team. They both give and they both take in their own ways. This disorder has thrown their dynamic off, but they still find ways to work together even as they are being driven apart.

Carlos gives T.K. a peck on the lips and slips away to brush his teeth. He tries to get his head away from the trepidation that comes with meals because he can’t spend his whole life thinking about eating or he’ll go crazy. Food is love and warmth to Carlos, but it all tastes lukewarm when T.K. spends whole meals glowering.

Everything seems to loop back to T.K.’s eating disorder no matter how hard Carlos tries to distract himself. As he puts the toothpaste onto the toothbrush, he can’t help wondering how many calories are in toothpaste because T.K. had asked him that question the night before He’d said it in a casual, offhanded way, but when T.K. had put the smallest dab on his toothbrush, Carlos had realized that calorie considerations were never casual with T.K. T.K. doesn’t always act on his disordered thoughts, but Carlos wonders how often irrational thoughts flicker through his brain. He wonders how T.K. can handle the relentless onslaught of food when there’s no escaping it. There’s no escaping any of this.

Even when he tries not to think about T.K.’s disorder, Carlos is thinking about it. Carlos doesn’t want it that way. T.K. doesn’t want it that way. Yet, it is. The thoughts charge into their everyday actions and shoot blanks at them. They leave bruises, but they don’t kill them. Not yet. The disordered thoughts are disorienting and make it hard to figure out who they’re fighting against because the enemy is a bunch of smaller problems, knotted together in intricate loops. The enemy and T.K. are one, enmeshed with one another. In the process of trying to separate them, the most basic tasks become hard. 

You don’t realize how much life revolves around food until it becomes an adversary. The inability to eat thwarts even the most basic activities like going out with friends or sharing a simple meal at home. It’s hard to date when food can’t be part of those dates. Even going to the movie theatre feels like a chore when Carlos ends up holding a big bag of popcorn that T.K. doesn’t even touch, and then, the knowledge of _why_ T.K. won’t touch the popcorn ruins the popcorn for Carlos too because he can tell that T.K. is tortured just by looking at it. Because the truth is that T.K. doesn’t hate food. He doesn’t hate eating. T.K. loves food, but he’s afraid of it.

Michelle always tells Carlos that he has to look after himself, that he can’t let T.K.’s sickness drag him down too. She warns him that he might have to let go eventually for his own sake. He’d scoffed at her. If Iris was in trouble, Michelle was going to be there, even if she could only be there through visits to the homeless encampment. Likewise, Carlos will be there for T.K., even if T.K. is trapped in a prison of his own brain. He’s not sure he can stand watching T.K. perpetually destroy himself, but if he can’t stand it, he’ll take a seat. Carlos will sit with T.K. in that prison cell for eternity if he needs to. Maybe it’s stupid. Maybe it’s unhealthy. Maybe it’s dangerous, but Carlos can’t stop hoping that something will change.

The thought that things might stay like this forever makes Carlos claustrophobic. The bathroom walls are pushing in on him, limiting his ability to breathe. Something has to change. T.K. has to get better. He _is_ getting better. It’s slow progress, but he’s improving. He had breakfast, and even if it was only a little, it was something. It gives Carlos hope. Just enough hope to think this might not turn out tragically.

Trying to control his emotions before they spiral too far, Carlos focuses on getting ready. He shaves his face, and the monotonous movement soothes him, giving him time to reduce his feelings back to the dull hum instead of an all-consuming panic. He reminds himself that everything’s going to be fine. Somehow, someway, he’s going to get through this. They’re vague reassurances, but he clings onto them.

By the time Carlos is finished in the bathroom, T.K. is done cleaning up from breakfast and is sitting on Carlos’ unmade bed in just his boxer briefs with a glint in his eye. They both need a break, a release from the feelings flooding their bodies, so they take time for intimacy, letting kisses and touches distract them from the chaos that they will soon return to. When they’re done, sweaty and tangled up in the sheets, they shower and get dressed for the day, each choosing to wear button down shirts for when they go to dinner later.

T.K.’s eyes light up when he sees Carlos all dressed up. “Do not break these buttons,” Carlos warns as T.K. leans in to kiss him.

“But you look so hot.” T.K. licks his lips, and it’s a relief to see T.K. act carefree, so Carlos rolls with it. The good times are so good.

“Austin PD doesn’t pay enough for you to keep destroying my shirts,” Carlos’ tone is wry.

T.K. grins impishly. “I know how to sew.” His fingers brush down the row of buttons, and Carlos pulls his hand away before T.K. gets too frisky.

“You know that if you want me to be shirtless, you can ask, but not right now, I have errands to run before we go to Mamá’s, so as much as I’d like to spend the day lounging around with you, I can’t let you and you’re pretty mouth distract me too much.”

“Wow, the exciting life of an off-duty Austin cop. You should have a reality show. _The Real Cops of Austin PD._ Could make some good money.”

Carlos laughs, pulling T.K. by the waist so they’re even closer. Carlos holds T.K. firmly in his arms, and he takes in the scent of faint vanilla and sandalwood. “It’d be canceled after fifteen minutes.”

“Take your shirt off and you could have five seasons easily.” T.K. leans up for a long kiss that Carlos truncates before he gets too intoxicated by T.K. to stop.

“Is that so?”

“That’s right.” T.K. sounds so self-assured. “But even if you don’t last that long, you can fit a lot of action in in fifteen minutes,” his voice is so smooth and seductive that Carlos almost forgets he has a checklist to accomplish. “Want me to show you?”

“We just cleaned up, Tiger.”

“Come on,” T.K. encourages, looking sweet and devilish. “It’ll be fun.”

“I can’t. I have to go grocery shopping.”

“Skip it.” Carlos would like to.

“I can’t. Work was so crazy last week that I could barely even come home. It’s been two weeks since I’ve shopped. My fridge is basically empty.” Carlos doesn’t mention that some people can’t live on oatmeal and tiny pieces of fruit.

T.K. pouts. “What about me?”

Carlos kisses those pouty lips. He can’t help it. “I won’t be long. You can hang out here if you want or I can drop you off at home.” He isn’t even going to ask if T.K. wants to go with him. Carlos has never been to a grocery store with T.K., but he can imagine a million ways it could go wrong. T.K. can barely be around food, so a building full of it seems like a bad idea.

T.K. shakes his head. “Dad has Zoe over, and I don’t want to show up unexpectedly.” T.K. cringes, and Carlos chuckles. “And I’d be bored here.”

“I’m sure you can find something to occupy yourself.”

T.K. gives a thoughtful look. “Maybe I could go with you.”

Carlos is careful with what he says next. “You don’t have to. I know that’s not really your thing.”

“I don’t mind grocery stores.” T.K.’s voice is tense. The flirty energy he’d had earlier is nowhere to be found.

“Are you sure?” Carlos is the one who’s not sure.

T.K. shrugs with one shoulder. “It’s not a big deal.” Carlos is wary, but he’s not going to say no to extra time with T.K. They’re shifts haven’t aligned lately, so they’ve barely spent any time together.

“Okay,” Carlos says, trying to not look too excited at the idea, but he thinks this might be a good sign. Maybe T.K.’s doing better after all. Maybe they can be like a regular couple. Grocery shopping is the most normal thing they’ve done in… well, Carlos can’t remember how long. They’d never been too into normal, even before the disorder had sent them spiraling.

When they get to the grocery store, it isn’t too packed to Carlos’ relief. He hates having to squeeze through aisles and navigate hoards of people when he’s trying to pick out what he wants. Carlos is hyper-organized in most areas of his life, and he used to be that way about groceries as well. He used to make a list of the meals he wanted to make and the things he he needed, but now, he doesn’t have much of a plan when he steps into the unforgiving fluorescent lights. He picks up whatever looks good and doesn’t care too much if he has to improvise when making dinners. It’s nice to pick up whatever looks good. It’s freeing to choose food without thinking too much about it.

T.K. stays close to Carlos, just behind him as they browse the front section where the produce is. T.K. watches everything very closely. His eyes are transfixed on all the colorful fruits and vegetables that welcome them into the store. “If you want anything, let me know,” Carlos tells T.K.

“That’s okay.” T.K. shakes his head.

Carlos picks up a bag of spinach and throws it into the cart. “I’ve really been on a spinach kick lately.” T.K. loves spinach.

“Yeah, me too,” T.K. says, and it’s hard to tell if he’s being sarcastic or genuine.

Carlos grabs some carrots and throws those in the cart too. Then, a bag of granny smith apples. He adds oranges for himself. He looks out for things that T.K. may eat and slips them into the cart, making excuses about cravings and recipe ideas.

T.K. walks through the aisles like he’s in a museum. He looks afraid to touch anything, but he stares at the different foods, analyzing them with his eyes. Some aisles make T.K. more nervous than others. Like the snack food aisle. Carlos watches as T.K.’s arms cross over his chest and he refuses to let himself even look at the items around him.

When they loop back to the front of the store, T.K. is drawn once again into the produce section, eyes caught on a pile of fruit. Carlos never seen anyone look at mangoes with such lust. “You want one?” Carlos asks, and T.K. looks startled at the question. Carlos picks up a mango.

“I shouldn’t, should I?” He’s asking to be told that it’s okay to want the mango.

“They’re good for you,” Carlos tells him.

T.K. looks unsure. “You can get one if you want,” and that doesn’t give Carlos any indication of what T.K. wants.

“Will you eat it if I get it?”

T.K. takes the mango from Carlos’ hand, and runs his fingers along the sides gingerly. “I don’t think so.” He reaches to put it back, but Carlos grabs his arm and takes the mango from T.K.’s hands. He puts it into the cart.

“It’s just a piece of fruit,” Carlos says.

“We better go,” T.K. replies, and he’s looking fidgety.

“Yeah,” Carlos decides. “I guess we better,” and they go to the checkout. Carlos is content with the contents of his cart, but he is disturbed by how T.K. keeps staring at that mango with a mix of yearning and horror.

By the time they get back to Carlos’ apartment, it’s time for lunch, and Carlos can feel his stomach grumbling. His mind is eagerly contemplating all the new food he’d just gotten. He rushes to put his food away while T.K. sits on the couch, scrolling through his phone and pushing on his stomach.

“Do you want something to eat?” Carlos turns his attention to T.K.

“Why would I?” T.K. asks, making Carlos feel like he’s asked the dumbest question in the world.

“It’s after one.” It’s been too long since breakfast for T.K. not to be hungry.

“Yeah, and?”

“Aren’t you going to have lunch?”

“I won’t be hungry for dinner if I do.” There is always an excuse from T.K., and usually not a good one. Carlos clenches his teeth to not say as much.

“Fine,” he grits out, and turn to the kitchen to make a sandwich for himself because he’s no longer in the mood to prepare anything more elaborate. Any enthusiasm he had for lunch has been drained. On a whim, he slices up the mango, hoping he can get T.K. to have some of it.

When Carlos finishes preparing his food, T.K. is sitting at the table with a cup of old coffee that he’d heated up in the microwave. Carlos pushes the mango in front of T.K. “I thought you might want something after all.”

T.K. glares at him. “I don’t want this.” T.K.’s staring at the fruit, mesmerized and cheeks pink with longing.

“This is barely anything.” T.K. stays very still as if he moves the fruit will attack him.

“I had a big breakfast.”

“Yeah, and I’m the APD commissioner,” Carlos can’t help the sourness in his voice.

“Why do you have to be like that?” T.K.’s getting defensive, which means Carlos has to tread carefully and try not to let himself get defensive.

 _Because I want you to be alive,_ Carlos wants to scream, but he settles for a calm, rational, “Because you’re hungry.” T.K. looks offended at the comment. “Just try one damn piece.” A battle drum is crescendoing steadily in Carlos’ head, playing the same monotonous rhythm it always does, and he doesn’t know why he expects the fight to go any differently this time. He doesn’t win. T.K. doesn’t win. The eating disorder wins.

“It’s _sugary._ ” When they first met, T.K. had the worst sweet tooth. He’d told Carlos that he’d wanted to try all the ice cream places in Austin, but now, he won’t even indulge in a piece fruit, and it’s terrifying how their lives slipped into dysfunction before Carlos even noticed something was wrong. It’d creeped up on them, posing as something harmless. By the time they realized what it was, it was too late.

 _You’re not thinking clearly_ , Carlos wants to tell him, but that would only make T.K. feel like shit. “It’s not going to kill you.”

T.K. taps his finger against the counter. “I know that.”

“It’s okay to enjoy food,” Carlos reminds him.

Picking up a piece of the fruit with tentative fingers, T.K. looks at the mango uncertainly. Shame flames in his eyes. “This is stupid.” He puts the fruit down, takes a deep breath, and picks it back up again.

“It’s okay,” Carlos assures him as T.K. takes a bite of the mango, eyes closing as the juice hits his tongue.

When they open, T.K.’s eyes are watery, but a tiny, twisted smile appears on his face. “It tastes like candy.”

“That’s a good thing?”

T.K. nods, but he shoves away the pieces of mango after four more bites. He clearly wants more but won’t look at the fruit anymore. Carlos figures something is better than nothing. Getting better takes time, and five pieces of mango isn’t nothing. It seems like barely anything, but to T.K., it was significant.

“Are you done?” Carlos asks. “You can have more if you want.”

“I’m full,” T.K. says, but his stomach is still rumbling. He had something for lunch, though, and Carlos is going to count that as a win. Maybe dinner will be even better.

It’s nearly six when they finally get to Carlos’ mother’s house for dinner. Carlos is already exhausted, but he puts on a happy face and tries to make the best of spending time with his family. As she’s putting out the food, his mother keeps looking over at him with concerned eyes, and he knows that he’s not as good of an actor as he’d hoped, or she knows him too well.

“What’s wrong?” she asks, voice soft but firm. Carlos feels like a little kid as her mahogany eyes stare him down. He wants to confess it all. Tell her everything that’s been building up like a pile of a million unpartnered socks. He wants to share all his fears with his mother like he did when he was ten and terrified of hurricanes because mothers know how to make their sons feel better, even if they can’t stop the storms that come tearing through their lives. Carlos can’t tell her, though, because this is T.K.’s storm, and Carlos is just in it with him, enduring it.

“I’ve just had a hectic week. Put in lots of overtime, and now, I’m exhausted.” It isn’t the full truth. It’s the least important worry clogging his mind, but he hopes it’s enough truth to get her to back off. Carlos serves himself some of the food. “A nice home cooked meal will make me feel better. Don’t worry about me, Mamá.”

“That’s the spirit,” Carlos’ oldest sister, Gloria, says, patting Carlos on the arm. “Food is good for the soul.” Gloria is a lot like their mother, looks almost identical to Ana too, but Gloria is more easygoing and funnier too. When she’s not working as a nurse, she does stand-up comedy.

T.K. only takes some of the vegetable medley, a good bit of salad, and a few tablespoons of corn, which is concerning enough to put Carlos on edge because dinner is supposed to be T.K.’s big meal, but it’s not concerning enough to make him say anything, especially not in front of his family. 

Carlos can see his mother dying to give T.K. “real food,” but the corn is buttered, so Carlos takes it as a victory and shoots his mother a look to keep quiet. He doesn’t know that she’ll listen. She doesn’t know what’s going on with T.K., probably wouldn’t understand it if she did, but he’s told her before not to push T.K. to eat more than he chooses to. She can’t help making little comments, but she’s certainly toned down her forcefulness. She no longer heaps food on T.K.’s plate without asking like she had the first time he’d come to family dinner with Carlos.

“Carlos,” his mother scolds him, “you didn’t take any salad.”

Gloria laughs. “It has spinach in it. You know he _hates_ spinach.”

Ana shakes her head. “It’s good for you.” She points to T.K.’s plate, “This one likes salad too much.”

Gloria looks pleased. “They balance each other out!”

“You can eat more than that,” Ana says, glowering at T.K.’s measly portion, but given that Ana has cooked beef and T.K. refuses to eat red meat or the buttery mashed potatoes that have been served along with it, the chances of him eating more than what’s on his plate are slim. Maybe Carlos can get him to have more vegetables or more corn, but probably not with his family around. Eating is private for T.K. He only eats in front of people he really trusts, and he doesn’t know Carlos’ family well enough yet to trust them with something so personal.

T.K. smiles at Ana, a wide toothy smile he reserves for bullshitting his way through life. He’s mastered that smile, and it took Carlos longer than he’d like to admit to figure out what it really meant. “I’m okay. Carlos made me a huge lunch.”

“That was lunch. This is dinner.”

“Mamá, he’s fine,” Carlos says.

Carlos’ younger twin brothers look at T.K. like he’s an alien. They’ve both got food stacked on their plates in piles so high that you could hide golf balls in the mounds. They’ve already started shoveling food into their mouths. Nineteen and athletic, the twins require almost more food than Ana can keep stocked.

Gloria is friendly, but she gives Carlos a questioning look. Glo always knows when something is up, so Carlos is extra careful about what he says around her. Because somewhere along the line, T.K.’s secret became Carlos’ secret, and the truth is, that it isn’t much of secret at all. Anyone who looks closely enough can see what’s wrong without even having to dig. Carlos is shocked by how many people don’t look.

“Mamá doesn’t tolerate picky eaters, T.K.” Gabriel says, and T.K.’s head snaps up, looking startled at the sound of his name. His eyes are unfocused, and Carlos would bet he’d been busy calculating how many calories are in his food.

“He’s—” Carlos looks for an excuse. He uses lots of excuses when it comes to T.K.’s eating, but it’s harder to lie to his family. They know him, and there’s a big part of him who thinks it’s wrong to lie about this, but blabbing won’t make it better, so he stays quiet.

“I’m vegan,” T.K. cuts in, and he’s never vegan before, but Carlos can’t think of another excuse, and now that it’s out there, it can’t be taken back. T.K. takes his fork and pokes at a piece of corn.

Josie, who has made her dislike of T.K. clear, for once, looks interested in something T.K.’s said. A self-satisfied smile is on her face, which means she’s looking for trouble. She’s not a bad person, but she has a vendetta against T.K. “Mamá puts butter in the corn,” she says like it is a challenge, and the corn falls from T.K.’s fork. Carlos wishes he could shove the words back into his sister’s mouth because they give T.K. a reason not to eat the corn, the highest calorie item on his plate. Carlos thinks T.K. might’ve planned it this way, and he’s so irritated by the thought that his own appetite is diminishing. Food doesn’t feel good when it’s a pawn in a sick game that no one can win. Carlos forces a forkful of food into his mouth because he doesn’t want T.K.’s disorder to become part of him more than it already has.

“Why do you have to be like that?” Carlos snaps at his sister. He’s humiliated by her behavior and mortified on T.K.’s behalf. T.K. already thinks that they hate him, and this shit is only going to make it worse. “Can’t you keep your mouth shut for once?”

“I just thought he’d like to know what’s in his food.” The problem is that he does know. Better than anyone, he knows exactly what he’s eating or can come pretty close to guessing. That’s how T.K. likes it. He likes to gather all the facts so that he can control what he puts into his body. 

Ana’s voice remains calm but firm. Veganism is another thing she doesn’t quite understand. “It’s already on his plate, Josefina. It would be wasteful if he didn’t eat it. The animals have already suffered. He can eat the corn.” Maybe that will be enough for T.K. to eat the corn. Maybe T.K. will feel like fighting his disorder today and eat the tiny amount of corn he has served himself, but Carlos doesn’t let himself be optimistic. T.K. looks green at the thought. After this, he might actually become vegan. In practice, he mostly is, but Carlos can’t stand the thought of him narrowing the lists of foods he’ll eat more than he already has.

“I really can’t,” T.K. told her. No one other than Carlos would detect the quiver in T.K.’s voice. “It would be wrong.” He’s freaking out, and Carlos can’t make it better. He can’t even manage to get his family to shut up.

“Since when are you vegan?” Gloria asks, and she isn’t accusatory like Josie, but her question is pointed. Things aren’t adding up to her, and Carlos thinks she’s closer to the truth than the rest of his family. Carlos should’ve known they’d dance around this topic eventually. They were so close to knowing, and it would feel good to stop keeping secrets, but Carlos isn’t willing to betray T.K.’s trust. The only person Carlos has told about this was Owen, and that had caused T.K. to be angry for a week.

Michelle knows too, but she’d connected the dots herself after T.K. had nearly passed out one evening and had refused to eat anything that would get his blood sugar up. She’d pulled Carlos aside and asked, “Does he have an eating disorder?” She’d also noticed the red marks on T.K.’s knuckles before even Carlos, and that was a can of worms Carlos had yet to unpack. He hasn’t seen that part of the disorder. There was stil so much mysterious in T.K.’s eating disorder, parts that Carlos might never fully know or understand.

“It’s new,” T.K. says with a shrug, and it would have to be pretty goddamn new considering he’d eaten three bites of Ana’s tamales just a week before. Looking back, it had been silly how excited Carlos had been when T.K. took those three bites, but the memory still brought a small smile to his face because it had been a big step for T.K. Carlos had felt euphoric for hours after that dinner.

“Can we just eat?” Carlos asks, trying to salvage this meal before T.K. decides there’s something not vegan about steamed vegetables and salad or decides he’s a breatharian.

 _Can we just eat?_ It’s a loaded question in Carlos’ experience. In the past months, he’s not experienced _just_ eating with T.K. It’s never just a meal or just a snack or just dessert. It’s always a battle, one that Carlos has enlisted for even though all he can do is wander around the battlefield, lost and scared as the adversary shoots at T.K. and T.K. lets himself be shot at. Carlos would feel so good if one day they could just eat. If he could have one wish, it would be that they could just eat because you don’t know how wonderful just eating feels until it’s gone.

“Some of us _are_ eating,” David replies, and Carlos pushes another forkful of food into his mouth to fight the irrationally intense anger he’s feeling at everyone. He’s not going to lose control. He’s going to get through this meal, even if it’s the hardest thing he’s ever done.

T.K. is pushing the vegetables around his plate with his fork, and Carlos worries that the vegetable medley will get too close to the butter covered corn and contaminate what’s left of T.K.’s meal, and he’s really not in the mood to let a blend of broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots ruin his day.

He nervously waits for T.K. to take a bite, and the anxious energy makes him feel more like he’s at a stakeout than having a meal with his boyfriend and family. He watches as T.K. cuts the broccoli stalk from the floret and then cuts the stalk into three tiny pieces. He puts one on his fork, but he keeps the tongs against the plate. Carlos looks away from T.K. because T.K. doesn’t like to be watched when he eats.

“The food is delicious, Mamá.” Carlos comments after taking a big bite of his own food.

“Most people love it,” Josie says, directing the comment to T.K. Carlos feels two seconds away from losing his mind and going off at anyone who tries to talk to him.

If only Josie knew how hard it was for T.K. to be here. Maybe then she’d be more careful with her words. The only relief Carlos can find is that T.K. probably hadn’t even heard Josie with how focused he was on the measly serving on his plate. When food is around, he gets so deep in his thoughts that he struggles to keep up with everything that’s happening around him.

“Quit being a brat,” Carlos tells her. She’s only a year younger than him, but sometimes it feels like there’s ten years between them. They’ve always gotten at each other’s throats. They’d do anything for each other, but they were the most competitive of the Reyes siblings. Their personalities clash, both are just like Papá used to be.

Josie crosses her arms. “Sorry for hating that your boyfriend thinks he too good for us.” She says it loud enough that T.K. has to hear her.

Alarm fills T.K.’s face, and he sits his fork down. Carlos can’t help but notice that two of the broccoli pieces are gone. “That’s not what I think,” T.K. says, voice uncertain. “I’m sorry—”

“No, don’t apologize for anything.” Carlos cuts in. T.K. says sorry too much for things he doesn’t need to be sorry for. “You didn’t do anything. Whatever my sister’s annoyed at, you didn’t do anything wrong to her.”

“He won’t even eat the food that we eat. She made as boring of a dish as she could find to try to please him, and he won’t even try it. She’s tried everything to please him, and it’s still not good enough.”

“Josefine, T.K. is our guest,” Ana admonishes her daughter.

“It’s okay, really,” T.K. says. “My dad always said that my picky eating would cause me trouble,” T.K. tries to joke, and it doesn’t cut the tension, but it softens Carlos a little. He loves how T.K. tries to make everybody feel comfortable even when T.K. looks noticeably uncomfortable.

“But Josefine is right that you don’t eat my food.” Carlos can’t explain that it isn’t his Mamá’s food that is the problem. He doesn’t get T.K.’s reasonings but he knows that he has them.

T.K. has a lot of food rules, ones that stupefy Carlos. He only eats certain foods. He doesn’t like to eat on his days off, which is appalling because he only has shifts two, sometimes three, times a week. T.K. says that he eats enough on days when he does eat to make up for the ones he doesn’t, but Carlos doesn’t know if he believes that. He doesn’t understand how T.K. could eat just fine on shift days and then look at steamed broccoli as the enemy the next day. But it makes sense to T.K., in some way, and it’s not that T.K. doesn’t know what he’s doing is abnormal; it’s more like he’s too superstitious to give normal a chance. He has that long set of rules in his head, and he’s terrified of what will happen if he breaks them.

“I’m vegan,” T.K. repeats. “So, it’s not anything against you or your food. I just can’t eat it.”

“You weren’t vegan before.” Ana is on the cusp of putting the pieces together, but Carlos doesn’t think she believes in eating disorders. She’d probably just say it was spoiled stubbornness. Maybe she’d try to understand if Carlos explained it, though. “And you barely ate my food then either.”

“It doesn’t matter. He’s vegan now. End of discussion.” Carlos loves his family, but he also loves T.K., and making a big deal out of food isn’t the way to get him to eat, and Carlos can’t risk that.

“How does your father deal with your fussiness?” Ana asks T.K., and Carlos reminds himself to respect his mother. “I wouldn’t allow that from my children.” Owen hates T.K.’s “fussiness.” He goes out of his way to make T.K. eat, which makes T.K. want to resist eating even more.

“Mamá, let it go.” T.K. is back to pushing food on his plate, and Carlos fears he won’t eat any more of it. T.K. takes a gulp from his glass of water and then another, drinking water to make the hunger go away. 

“You enable him, Carlos,” and the comment strikes him, makes him wonder if he’s doing everything wrong because maybe he isn’t making anything better. Sometimes, he fears that he does enable T.K. He worries that he’s not doing enough, but until T.K. decides that he wants to make a major change, Carlos can’t force him to do anything. They’ve been taking little steps. T.K.’s been doing marginally better, but Carlos can’t make him eat more than he’s willing. He can’t bring the light back into his eyes. He can’t make T.K. healthy again. Only T.K. can make the change, and Carlos is going to do his best to facilitate that change.

“He doesn’t,” T.K. insists because he can’t help defending Carlos. He struggles to defend himself against Carlos’ family, but he defends Carlos without a second thought. “I’d be a lot worse off without him.”

“And I’d be a lot worse off without T.K., so please, stop treating like he’s an outsider. He’s part of my life, and you’re going to have let him be part of yours too.”

“We want what’s best for you,” Ana says.

“He’s best for me. He makes me happy,” Carlos replies in a voice that is markedly unhappy because it’s hard to be happy when the person you love is slowly killing himself, but for all the hardship, he’d be a lot less happy without T.K.

“You don’t sound happy.”

“I’m just going through a hard time, but overall, I’m happy, Mamá.”

She raises her brows. “A hard time?” He swallows hard, knowing he’s said too much and can say too little in response. He tries to think of something to say, something that won’t reveal more than T.K. wants revealed, but her gaze makes him nervous like he’s a little kid with crumbs on his face, trying to claim he didn’t sneak a cookie from the jar.

“It’s my fault,” T.K. says before Carlos can come up with an excuse. Carlos’ family is looking at T.K. with curiosity written all over their faces. They are unnaturally quiet. His brothers have put their forks down, which itself is a shock to the system. “It’s hard for me to eat sometimes.” Carlos nearly falls off his chair, not believing his ears. He can’t let T.K. do this. T.K.’s never done this. Even when Owen confronted him about his eating disorder, T.K. never admitted to having a problem. He’d insisted it was a non-issue. When Michelle had figured it out, T.K. had laughed at the idea, telling her that she was mistaken.

“You don’t owe them an explanation,” and at this point, Carlos doesn’t think they deserve one, but T.K. is stubborn, so once he decides to do something, he follows through.

He gives Carlos a sympathetic look. “You shouldn’t have to lie for me.”

Ana looks to Carlos and then to T.K. and back to Carlos again. “What’s this all about?”

Carlos can feel T.K.’s leg jiggling beside him, and puts a hand on his thigh, giving it a reassuring squeeze and a look that says, “You don’t have to say anything you don’t want to.” It’s too late to not be bombarded with a million questions from his family.

T.K. takes a breath and opens his mouth then closes it again, but eventually, he speaks. For Carlos, it happens in slow motion, and T.K.’s mouth begins moving before Carlos can process the words he’s hearing. “I’m not really a vegan,” T.K. confesses, and Carlos thanks God that Josie keeps the comment she’s surely dying to say to herself. “Or vegetarian. Or not hungry. Or allergic to anything. Or picky,” he lists off all the excuses he’s used in the past for not eating. “Well, I’m picky, but it’s got nothing to do with what I like and don’t like the taste of. I didn’t have a big lunch either.” How quickly lies stack up as the truth gets lost in the false comfort of the truth you want instead of the one you’ve been given.

“Then, why won’t you eat?” Ana sounds befuddled. She doesn’t understand why anyone, full or not, would turn down a good meal because as far as she’s concerned, food is about the social aspect just as much as it is about hunger.

T.K. clutches Carlos’ hand and Carlos can feel T.K. shaking. “Um… well… I guess I don’t know why. It’s kind of complicated but food… it’s different for me. My brain stops me from eating, and no matter how much I want to, I can’t always force myself to put food into my body.”

Ana turns to Carlos for clarification, confusion on her face. “What does that mean, mijo?”

Carlos looks to T.K. to see if it’s okay to speak, and T.K. nods because there are certain words that he’s unable to say. Carlos himself can barely talk about T.K.’s disorder because doing so feels like betrayal. Carlos takes a deep breath. He can say this. He can confess the secret he’s been keeping. He can let it go. “He has an eating disorder.” Might as well be blunt about it. T.K. looks like he’s been punched and everyone else looks confused.

“ _He_ can’t have an eating disorder,” Ana eventually mutters, and Carlos barely hears what she says next with the way his heart is pumping in his ears, a red-hot haze starting to form in his mind. “It’s not sensible.”

“Mamá!”

“You know she’s right. He doesn’t even look like he has an eating disorder,” Josie adds, and Carlos knows that comment will trigger T.K. to hell and back. He wants to whisk T.K. away from this chaos before the little annoyances trampling on Carlos’ push him over the edge.

“Josie, shut up,” Gloria says, and Carlos is thankful that he doesn’t have to risk opening his mouth to respond to his sister. He’d probably say something ugly. T.K. is stiff next to him, looking like he wants to disappear. He’ll never come to family dinner again.

Carlos rises from his chair, throwing his napkin to the table. “We better go.”

“You’ve barely eaten,” his Mamá says.

“I know,” Carlos shouts because he’s so exhausted. He wants to scream that it’s become his life to track how much food someone else has eaten, and that he’s the first person to notice an empty plate or a full one. It’s become second nature, and he’s had enough. This is hard enough without the opinions of people who clearly know nothing about what he’s been dealing with.

“Carlos, it’s okay,” T.K. puts a calming hand on Carlos’ arm.

“It’s not okay,” Carlos snaps, and he’s got to reel himself in because he can feel cruel words that he know better than to say hopping up and down on his tongue, ready to jump out of his mouth. He’s feeling fired up, which he knows is the worst time to open your mouth. “None of this is okay,” he says more calmly, but his stomach still feels like it’s filled with fizzy battery acid. “I don’t really feel like being here anymore. Let’s go, T.K.,” T.K. stands beside him, looking between Carlos and his mother.

“You don’t have to go,” Ana says and there’s guilt on her face. Carlos takes in a breath, trying to ward away some of the rage he is feeling, but he struggles to see past the storm in his eyes.

“I’m tired, Mamá.” He leans over the table to give her a little kiss on the cheek. He’s doesn’t like to leave a room angry. “I think it’s best if I just have a little space before I say something I regret.”

“I’m sorry, Carlos,” Josie says, looking sincerely remorseful for her actions.

“A little late for that, Jo, but we can talk about it later.” Carlos squeezes T.K.’s hand “But I’m not the one you should be saying sorry to.”

Josie looks up at T.K. “I’m sorry.” She doesn’t seem to grasp why she should be sorry, but Josie sucking up her pride and saying those words meant something to Carlos, even if he couldn’t see with how hot his whole body still felt.

“It’s not a big deal,” T.K. tells her with one of those too big smiles, and Carlos can’t believe how T.K. can be so hot blooded in some situations, but so calm in ones like this. T.K. looks anxious, but there’s no hint of anger on his face.

“I’ll see y’all later,” Carlos says to his siblings. “Mamá, I’ll swing by tomorrow morning, okay? I have the day off.”

She blows him a kiss. “We can talk over breakfast.”

Carlos nods, “See you then.”

“Thanks for dinner,” T.K. adds with a cheerful wave, and the comment nearly causes Carlos to laugh because judging by the way T.K. said it, it’s like T.K. attended a completely dinner. That politeness would mean a lot to Carlos’ mother.

They’re silent the whole ride home. They barely talk when they get back to Carlos’ apartment either. T.K. puts a TV show on, and he says very little until they’ve binged five episodes and it’s time to go to bed. Carlos isn’t much in the mood for talking either, anger still making his blood feel like it’s blistering his skin, but he knows they’ll have to talk about it eventually. They’re both stewing in the emotions that have been dragged to the surface by the horrific dinner.

It isn’t until they’re in bed that they really speak. T.K. turns over to face Carlos. T.K. starts chuckling before he even says anything.

Carlos can’t help but smile at the sweet sound. “What’s so funny?”

“I didn’t think a dinner could ever be worse than our first one.”

Carlos can laugh about that now, and he does. “Let’s hope that’s the last of the bad dinners.” He pulls T.K. into his arms. “I’m sorry you had to deal with all that.”

“It’s fine.”

Carlos shakes his head. “They were awful.”

T.K. bites the side of his lip. “I don’t want to get between you and your family.”

“You’re not. My family is fine.” Carlos didn’t want T.K. to worry about his family on top of everything else.

“You’ve looked like you wanted to punch a wall all evening.”

“I’m mad at them right now. They said shitty things, so I just need time to calm down. We’re family. We’ll be fine. Fights happen.” Carlos sighs. “It’s not them I’m worried about.”

T.K. turns away, rolling over onto his back, Carlos’ arms are still around him. “Not this again. I clearly don’t have a problem. That’s what they said, isn’t it?”

“Honey, they don’t know what they’re talking about.”

“You think they’re right. I know you do. You’ve probably said the same things to yourself a million times. Don’t you? Don’t you think it’s ridiculous that I act like this? You think I’m crazy. You’re just nice enough not to say it.”

“You’re not crazy. You have an eating disorder.” Those words make T.K. freeze every time Carlos says them, and honestly, they still feel a little foreign on Carlos’ tongue.

“Doesn’t seem much like one, does it? I’m just a fraud. I act like I can’t eat, but I can. Obviously, I can. I’ve been doing it for twenty-six years. It’s just a matter of putting food in my mouth and chewing. How hard can that be? It’s not a _problem._ It’s being stupid and stubborn.” No matter what he says, Carlos can’t seem to drive it into T.K.’s head that the things he does aren’t normal. T.K. won’t admit that he’s not fine.

Carlos turns T.K.’s head to look at him. “You can’t tell _me_ that you don’t have a problem. I’m the one who sees you destroying yourself day after day. I’m the one who watches you panic over meals and obsess over what foods you’ve consumed on any given day. Today at the store, you were like a kid seeing fireworks for the first time, awed but still so scared. That’s a problem.”

“I want to be different, but I’m stuck, and it doesn’t make sense. None of it makes sense.”

“You can be. It just takes time, and it takes facing your fears. When you ate that mango today, that was progress.”

“It was pathetic.”

“Someday, you won’t remember it that way.”

“Maybe,” T.K. concedes. “But for today, I just want to sleep. I’m sick of this day.”

Carlos laughs. “Yeah, me too,” he says, but as exhausted as he is, he doesn’t feel tired. There’s too much happening in his head for him to sleep.

T.K. kisses him, “Goodnight, Carlos. I love you”

“Goodnight. I love you too,” Carlos replies as the lamp flips off and T.K. cuddles closer to Carlos. It’s good to have T.K. so close. It reminds Carlos that he’s still breathing. Still alive.

Thoughts are ripping through Carlos’ brain, fast and frantic. He can’t shut them off, so even as T.K. drifts to sleep, snoring softly with his head against Carlos’ chest, Carlos can’t fall asleep. He remains vigilant, trying to prepare himself for the fresh wave of turmoil that the new morning will bring because morning doesn’t bring a new start. It brings a new batch of attacks that the night had held off. Tomorrow will be another challenge, maybe worse than today, and Carlos isn’t quite ready to wake up to that yet. He needs just a little while longer to ready himself for the sun bursting in through the blinds and the faintly pulsing anger ticking in the pit of his stomach.

In the near muteness of the room, Carlos hears the rumbling echoing through the room, closer than ever, even as T.K.’s fast asleep. It never stops. There’s a chemical reaction in Carlos’ gut, turning the residual anger into something much worse. He clenches his eyes, but when he opens them, tears spring, and Carlos feels wet droplets rushing down his cheeks, rolling down his face, and pushing in through the corners of his mouth, hot and salty. They start off slow, but the pressure in his head is building. The rumbling has quieted for the moment, but Carlos is sobbing now, trying to muffle the sounds of his hiccuping with his pillow. It’s always so hard at night, when rage reveals its true face and shows itself to be small and mousy. It’s a deep, sorrowful fear—a torrential downpour of wondering if the rumbling will ever go away.


	2. Counting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> T.K. can't stop counting.

T.K.’s never done so much math in his life, but his life is entirely counting now. Numbers shape his every waking moment because, without the numbers, he is lost. There’s no way to tell whether he should be happy, depressed, angry, nervous, or bored. Without the numbers, his life has meaning, and with them, he feels purified. The numbers provide a formula for parts of life that are abstract. **You lose control when you can’t count anymore.**

The counting begins mere moments after he wakes up. It is regimented and industrial, and it makes him feel suspense and relief all at once. There’s no escaping the tallying, fractions, decimal points, and arithmetic of it all. No gradient, either. It’s barreling at him, wrong and right clearly defined within the equations. _Thrump, thrump, thrump._ It’s like a train, big and too hard to stop by the time you realize it’s heading for collision. Its whistle starts dim and grows shrill as it gets closer and vibrates in T.K.’s ears— _thrump, thrump, thrump—_ but the train never travels too far. It moves in a sporadic oval around him that shrinks and expands as he goes about his day. The train comes and goes with little warning. By the time he hears the whistle, he’s lost in it, the counting. The tracks trap him, in a small core filled with exposed wire that would kill him if he made a wrong move. It might kill him even if he stays perfectly still as he counts and tries not to breathe too hard. Counting won’t save him, but it is safer. He doesn’t know why, but it wards away the nasty feelings that he doesn’t know how else to deal with. It mutes them, at least, giving him a chance to focus on other things.

So, he barely gets a thought in before the numbers start bombarding him. Most people would kill to have basic equations that tell them how to continue their days, but T.K. dreads it. He’s in a constant cycle of trying not to eat and compensating when he inevitably does have to eat. His first thought is, _How long has it been since I’ve eaten?_ He does a quick tally. He finished lunch around one. It’s six now. It’s been seventeen hours. _Too few. I need to go longer. Seventeen hours is nothing._ His stomach grumbles. _Maybe not too much longer._ The numbers tell him to keep going, so T.K. can’t resist. **Don’t you even think of quitting before twenty-four hours,** a nasty voice says, and T.K. is sick of hearing it, but it keeps him company, filling his brain when the world is quiet and there’s not enough to fill his headspace. He’s not sure that he can get away with twenty-four hours. His dad keeps a close watch over his eating habits, but with some diversion, it could be possible. If diversion doesn’t work, he has other tactics, but he prefers not to use them. **Who cares what you prefer?** He tells himself those _habits_ are not a problem because he doesn’t use them every day. **Maybe you should. You’re getting pudgy, Tyler. You should have controlled yourself better yesterday.**

He’s starting to feel anxious as he thinks about all the calories he shouldn’t have eaten, so he counts some more, trying to avoid counting the calories themselves because he doesn’t want to remember those quite yet. **_Weight. Think about your weight. That’s the number you always like to start your day with._**

He remembers his weight from yesterday evening and then the one from the morning. He hadn’t been able to get an afternoon number since his dad had dragged him out to lunch that afternoon. That had been a torturous endeavor in itself. _I still don’t get why he thought I’d want fast food of all things._ T.K. had ended up with a salad that Owen had chosen for him when he’d frozen up looking at the menu, but it’d been one of those salads that shouldn’t actually be a salad— topped with a disturbing number of calories and creamy dressing. It should be a crime that some salads have more calories than even burgers or fries. Dressing alone is an exorbitant number of calories. When you add everything else, it’s a nightmare. Doesn’t anyone appreciate the wonders of a plain garden salad anymore? **Fresh, clean, pure.** He stops his mind before it strays too far from the counting. _I need to get back to the counting._

His morning stats had been lower than expected while the stats before he went to bed, had been higher than expected, which meant the determination of whether yesterday was a good day or a bad day would fall upon today’s morning weight. _I don’t want to see the number. I know it’s going to be awful. Yesterday had to have been a bad day after that salad._ **You never get it right, do you?** Most days are bad days. **Because you can never get enough weight off, and you can’t help packing it all back on.**

It’s not like he actually cares about weight. He isn’t like _that_. He’s not obsessed with his weight or anything. **????** Well, not in a vain way. He doesn’t want to be skinny or whatever it is that people with _actual problems_ want. Like, yeah, **losing weight feels good** , but it’s not because he wants to be like those tiny models in magazines. He doesn’t want to be pretty or feel pressure to look good for a boy he has a crush on. What should it matter if it was a half-pound up or a quarter-pound down? How does it have the power to influence the mood of his whole day? It’s hard to explain. It’s hard to make sense of the debate endlessly going on in his head. _Why does it matter so much?_ **It matters because you’re gross. You’re so disgusting no matter what weight you are, so you might as well be thin and disgusting. But you’re not very good at this weight management thing, are you? It’s a real shame too. You could be so perfect if you put a little more work in.** _What if I’ll never be good enough?_ **You won’t be. Stop being so lazy and maybe you’ll at least be decent enough.**

T.K. knows that he needs to get up because the day is starting without him. **You’ve always lagged behind the rest. You should have gotten up to go on a run, but you couldn’t get your fat ass moving.** **Rip off the band-aid and get on the scale, fatty.** The numbers are pressing at his brain, and the need to check the damage from the day before is intense. He won’t be able to weigh himself while he’s at work. Owen won’t be up for another half hour, and T.K. needs to have breakfast before Owen gets up, so he can’t get distracted. Well, he’ll have coffee, but that’s something, isn’t it? **More than enough.** Before he heads to the kitchen, he makes a pit stop in the bathroom because he’s got to get this out of the way, or else he won’t be able to think of anything else. This always feels like a high-stakes game of Candyland. He rolls the dice and hopes that the numbers work in his favor.

He needs the weight to be as low as possible, even a few extra grams is too many. He’s scared to know the truth, but he has to. **You lose control when you can’t count anymore.**

There’s a ritual to this that he doesn’t give much thought to because there’s no rhyme or reason to it other than it feels right, he just does it. He empties his bladder, strips his clothes, pulls out the scale, weighs himself, steps off the scale, steps on the scale again, steps back off, steps back on, and back off one last time. The number’s the same all three times, and that makes him feel a rush of relief, which is short-lived when his brain can finally process the number it’s seeing. _Oh shit._ **Up two pounds. Might as well sign up for weight watchers now. Oh, my mistake, it’s called WW now, isn’t it? This is all your boyfriend’s fault. You’re such a pig around him. I can’t believe he likes a fat piece of lard like you. Sooner or later he’s going to realize that you aren’t worth the time. If you drop a few pounds, you might be able to show him that your more than a loser who has zero self-control.**

He gets dressed again before the cool air conditioning can cool him too much, and retraces what could have led him to this disastrous weigh in. A lot of factors can impact weight like how much water you take in or if you sweat or how many carbs you eat. The numbers aren’t easy on this one, and he’ll never have sure answers to these questions. If he did, he may be able to behave more ideally, but the human body isn’t that straightforward.

Yesterday had been a bad food day; he can admit that. He’d eaten way more than he’d anticipated, but two pounds worth? No way. Logically, he can attribute this gain to normal fluctuation, but he doesn’t give a damn about logic. His weight has always fluctuated, so it’s not like it isn’t normal, but he feels like he’s losing a grip on this one thing he’s mastered each time the scale creeps up past what he has determined is safe. Being hungry isn’t a skill that you can put on your resume, but it’s great if you want to be on a survival show or be part of a competition called _The Biggest Moron._

He goes through everything that he ate yesterday. He could check one of his three calorie-tracking apps— because he absolutely needs all three— but he likes to test his memory. _Make sure that I haven’t lost it yet._ He’d had 20 grams of oatmeal for breakfast with a banana his father had practically force-fed him. He hates bananas. He used to love them as a kid, but he had been young and stupid then. They taste _unhealthy_. The 20 grams of oatmeal was 75 calories, but he rounded that up to 80 to be safe. At 4.2 ounces, the banana was 105 calories which he rounded up to be 110. **You lose control when you can’t count anymore.**

Then, lunch had ruined everything when his salad had been 730 calories, which was more than his dad’s Big Mac had been. Owen _never_ ate Big Macs, which weren’t at all keto-friendly, or anything that disgusting, so T.K. was suspicious. T.K. was paranoid that Owen had chosen that Big Mac on purpose as some kind of plot, trying to mess with T.K.’s head.

T.K. hadn’t eaten all his salad, but he hadn’t been able to measure it either, so there were too many variables that it made his head hurt just to guess how many calories that monstrosity might have been, so he had logged the 730, and he tried not to be too disgusted when his calorie count soared up over 900 on all three trackers, which was atrocious for a day that hadn’t meant to be an eating day at all. Technically, he hadn’t eaten that much, but he could still feel all that food sitting in his stomach. He’d had no choice but to skip dinner. He’d told his dad that he was eating with Carlos, and he’d told Carlos that he had already eaten with his dad. Even now that they know what he’s been doing, it’s still amazing how easily he can trick them. They want to believe that he’s making progress, but it’s hard for them to fathom what T.K. lives with. Food is natural to them. It doesn’t feel like the enemy. T.K. knows better. Food could be his undoing if he lets it. **You better not let it.** _I won’t._ **We’ll see about that.** _I won’t._

When he’s gotten over the mortification of existing in a body that is too much, he drags his feet to the kitchen to begin making coffee. This kitchen is bigger than Carlos’, but when no one is around, it feels colder too. It’s too new, too white, and too full of food that T.K. can’t eat. When the coffee is going, T.K. pours some cereal into a bowl, and it feels liberating to pour it without measuring. With the cereal, he adds just enough milk— skim, 83 calories per serving. He grabs a spoon, puts that in the bowl as well, and sets it all on the counter while he waits for his coffee. If T.K. had to guess, he’d say that there are around 210 calories of cereal there and around 30 calories of milk in the bowl. He’d never actually drink the milk. He only uses almond milk, the one that has 30 calories per serving. His dad had gotten him a 60 calorie one once, and he’d refused to drink it on principle.

T.K. relaxes when he finally has the hot cup of coffee in his hand. The drink thaws him. He leans against the counter, savoring each sip, and the numbers become faint. They’re not gone, but he’s corralled them for a while. They’re yapping at him, but they can’t get him, not yet. _I won’t come undone._

He knows that there are technically calories in coffee, but it’s a rule that coffee calories don’t count. If he has it black, he doesn’t even bother measuring how much he drinks. He knows his mug will hold about eight ounces if he fills it to the stripe. Eight ounces is two calories. He knows that number, and there’s a small pinch of annoyance that he’ll never be at zero— because he can’t give up coffee— but that’s a feeling he’ll have to live with. He’ll always be tainted by the calories that creep into his life because even if he was a master at restriction, he’d still have to eat. **And be a worthless waste of space.**

He doesn’t even trust calorie counts. Food packaging likes to lie. Companies can round numbers based on certain rules that are too exhausting for T.K. to remember in full, but he knows that things like zero-calorie sweeteners aren’t really zero calories. He doesn’t trust that anything is zero calories other than water. He can have water as much as he wants and not feel niggling guilt.

When he’s done with his first cup of coffee, he takes the cereal and dumps it into a plastic bag. He seals the bag and puts it in the garbage can, being sure to wedge it beneath other garbage. Guilt stirs in his stomach because of how wasteful he is being, but he pushes it aside because this is how it has to be. He puts the bowl in the sink, rinsing it a little, but ensuring that the dirty water in the bowl is still milky and a few bits of cereal float in the water. The spoon is nice and starchy, and T.K. is pleased with his work. It may seem like overkill, but the devil’s in the details. When things are in place, people don’t question what they are seeing, but if something seems off that’s when they take the time to think a little harder.

T.K. pours more coffee and hears Owen coming out from his room. “Good morning,” Owen says when he gets to the kitchen. His voice is less peppy than usual, and T.K. worries that Owen’s cancer treatment is having bad side effects. T.K. watches as his father’s eyes land on the sink. “You ate breakfast already?”

“Just finished,” T.K. lies, and he’s so used to lying that it doesn’t really phase him anymore. Sometimes he forgets the lies aren’t true. He forgets that

“What did you have?”

T.K. shrugs. “Some cereal.” Getting too specific will make it sound like he’s trying to sell the idea that he’s eating food too much.

“What kind?” **Watch out. He’s not just being conversational. He’s trying to trick you.** T.K. had messed this game up once when he’d said that he’d had a bagel and his dad had eaten the last bagel the day before. **That was your own stupid fault.** He is more careful now. Owen is more cautious too, which is why T.K. can’t afford to miss any details. If he does, his dad will get more distrusting, and the more distrusting Owen gets, the less freedom T.K. will have to eat how he pleases.

“Corn flakes,” T.K. says, not looking up from his coffee.

“With milk?” T.K. knows that his dad is trying to trick him into saying he used almond milk, even though he knows from making his cereal that the almond milk is gone. Using the skim milk had actually bothered T.K. more than he would ever admit because the idea of putting the higher calorie option into his cereal— even his decoy cereal— made him anxious.

He is winning this game with Owen. There is no way to lose. He’s prompt with his answer, “Skim.”

“You don’t drink skim.” **One of your few good decisions in life.**

He can excuse this away easily. “I was trying to challenge myself.” Not a lie. _I’m trying to see how long I can go without eating._ “That’s what you want from me, isn’t it?

Owen nods distractedly. “Did you get enough?” _If I keep drinking coffee, I’ll get through my shift. That’s all that matters. Seventeen hours is nothing. **Yet, you’re going to ruin your fast just as you start to do well.**_

“Plenty. I’m good, Dad.” **You’re a wreck. You can’t do anything worthwhile.**

“I don’t think that’s true.” Owen sighs, and T.K. isn’t sure what he said wrong, but something is off between them. “You didn’t have dinner last night.” Owen’s tone is tight, and T.K. feels like he’s been knocked off his feet. _He can’t know._ **What did you mess up this time?**

“I told you—”

“No, T.K. Don’t lie to me. Carlos was under the impression that you had dinner with me, but that never happened, so I’m guessing you didn’t have dinner with anyone.”

“Were you checking up on me? Because it’s not your business what I do.” Maybe if his dad would back off, T.K. wouldn’t be so off his rocker. He can’t take the constant paternal supervision. He’s an adult now. He needs space.

“I wouldn’t have to check in on you if you ate.” **He’s crossing all kinds of boundaries and you just let him. Stand up for yourself for once. You’re being an idiot.**

“I do eat.” **Too much if you ask me.**

“Not enough. If you want to go to work today, you need to eat.” **Ultimatums are the tools of those who no bargaining power left. You can win this one.**

“I already ate.” That’s not a lie. He’d eaten. It had been hours ago, but he had eaten already.

“This isn’t a debate. Eat or take a sick day.” T.K. isn’t going to accept either choice because he’ll go crazy if he doesn’t work, and he’ll go crazy if he does eat. It’s not as easy as having a choice.

“I already had breakfast.” Again, he could argue that his statement isn’t a lie. In his life, he’s already had breakfast. It’s not his fault if those words imply that he’s already had it today. _Okay, so maybe it is a lie._ Owen isn’t stupid enough to believe T.K., but T.K.’s not going to admit that he is lying because to do that would also be admitting all he does just to keep this thing a secret, and there’s a part of him that knows that feeling like he has to keep this a secret indicates that it isn’t right. **The process is right. You’re the one who is wrong.**

“If I didn’t see it, it probably didn’t happen.” **There’s no point in eating when no one’s around to see.**

“I’m not lying to you.” There was no debating that that one _was_ a lie.

“How am I supposed to believe that?” T.K. doesn’t like the corner he’s being backed into. **Get him to shut up before this gets worse.**

“I am twenty-six years old. I can handle my own body. You can’t keep acting like I’m a little kid. Your chance to be that kid’s father passed a long time ago.” He says it just to hit his dad where it hurts. Maybe it makes him an awful person, but this thing he does, this not eating and depriving himself is the most important thing that he has, and he can’t lose it.

Owen doesn’t take the bait even though hurt flashes on his features. “I wouldn’t let any one of my team members work if they weren’t fully up to it. It’s not just you. But you are my son, and more than anything, I want you to be happy and healthy.” _Then, where were you? Where were you when I was a little kid who needed his father to feel protected and loved? Where were you when I wanted your help? Where were you back when I still believed that you wanted me to be happy and healthy more than anything?_ He’d been at work, obsessed with what he had lost, and T.K. knows how hard 9/11 was for Owen. He knows how unfair and awful it felt. He knows Owen is a better dad now, but some things were too late to change.

“Yeah, and _you’re_ so fit to work when you puke the entire day and then still go to work.” T.K. knows that some days Owen can barely lift his head from his pillow, but he stills goes to work anyway. T.K. isn’t sick, not like Owen is.

“I know my limits.” It sounds so condescending like T.K. is powerless and doesn’t even know his own body. _I know my body._

“So do I.” _If I didn’t know my limits, I’d be dead._

“You’d go days without eating if you could get away with it. You’d let yourself waste away to nothing without caring. In my book, that’s not knowing your limits.” Everyone seems to think that going a few days without eating is a problem, and it would be if T.K. was trying to stop eating altogether, but he does eat. He knows that he has to just to stay alive, but he doesn’t have to eat how people tell him to.

“It’s not like that. A few days is nothing. Fasting is good for you. In fact, people who fast live longer.” That’s true. Some research supported fasting, but not the kind of fasting that T.K. was doing. **Most people don’t have the self-control that you do.**

Owen crosses his arms. “So, if I asked a doctor, they’d tell me that what you’re doing is healthy?”

“I’m not doing anything.” **Don’t I know it. You’re wasting space and that’s it.** “People can go over a month without eating.” Owen opens his mouth to say something, but T.K stops him. “I’m not going to do that if that’s what you’re worried about. I was just putting it in perspective.”

“It’s normal to eat three meals a day, and I want you to eat breakfast.” T.K. has never been fond of breakfast. He just doesn’t see the point. You’re so busy in the morning that you might as well just skip over to lunch.

“I can’t,” T.K.’s voice choked. He’s not just saying it just to be stubborn. He really can’t do it. His brain won’t let him. A barrier has been put up, and he doesn’t have the strength to tear it down. _I know I can’t do this forever, but I can’t stop._

“Nothing’s stopping you.” This is what people don’t get about his condition. He can’t just eat. No matter how much he wishes he could, he can’t. That brick wall in his brain severs the connections that should be telling him that he needs food, telling him that it’s okay to eat. The signals are off, so he can’t like normal people eat.

“I’m not going to eat just because someone else tells me that I should be hungry.” He feels hungry sometimes, but not as much as you would think. His hunger cues barely interact with him anymore. Neglected and confused, they’ve gotten used to T.K. not answering, so they don’t call.

“Fine. You’re taking a sick day. I won’t have you working if you’re not physically up to it.” _It’s not like I’m an invalid. It’s not like I’m the one fighting a serious illness. If anyone should take a sick day, it’s him._ **He’s trying to make you miserable. He hates you. He probably wishes he’d been given another son, one he wouldn’t have had to leave.**

“Physically, I’m fine. I’m not hungry. I’ll eat in…” he looks at his phone. “…six-ish hours. Okay?” They’ve got their negotiation voices on.

“Have a piece of fruit and I’ll let this go.” Owen isn’t asking for much, but T.K. feels a tightness in his chest at the thought of not being able to make it a full twenty-four hours. _I need to stay in control._ **Just don’t go to work then.** _People need me. **Make an excuse. Don’t be so stupid all the time. I can’t always be the one coming up with ideas.**_

“Maybe I will just stay at home.” T.K. is standing his ground. “I can go a lot more than six hours if I stay here. I bet I could go for a whole shift without having a bite to eat.”

“T.K., stop right now.” **Don’t stop. This is getting good.**

“Then, I can continue my fast for our two days off too. It’ll be a nice little break from eating.” They both know that it’s not an empty threat. T.K. would go all that time not eating just to spite his father for trying to get him to eat when he didn’t want to. _I’m such a manipulative jerk._ **You’re getting shit done. Nothing wrong with that.**

“You can’t go three days without eating.”

“I could go more if I wanted to. After day three, it gets easy. You get used to not eating, I guess. You don’t feel like you’re going to sick from being so hungry. You feel…” _high “_ …good.”

Owen pales, and T.K. feels guilty for being the absolute worst son on Earth, but he doesn’t feel guilty enough to change because changing would ruin everything he’s worked for. Owen’s voice is disbelieving. “You’d rather starve yourself for _days_ than eat a piece of fruit?” That piece of fruit would probably have 100 calories, and that would be fine if T.K. hadn’t already promised himself that he was going to fast for twenty-four hours. _It’s the principle of it._ “You need help.”

“I have a therapist. You chose her, remember?”

“She isn’t an expert on eating—” T.K.’s eyes widen.

“Don’t even finish that. I don’t have that.”

“T.K., please.”

T.K. shakes his head. “I have to go get ready.” With all the fighting, it is getting late, and T.K. has to try to make himself look less exhausted than he feels.

Owen sighs. “Fine, but you’re eating lunch.” Owen has all the power at work. T.K. can’t make a scene in front of the 126 without giving away his little issue – **non-issue** – away, and the last thing he needs is to have more eyes watching over him, so sometimes, he has to play the game.

“Yeah, well, I ate breakfast too.”

“Try lying to someone who believes you,” Owen says with just enough heat to his voice that T.K. worries that he’s pushed things too far. **He’s going to leave you and never come back because he can’t put up with your neediness anymore.** He feels a wave of anxious anger run through him, and he has to bite his tongue not to say something petty.

Well, maybe he can afford to be a little petty. “Try having a little trust for once,” T.K. counters before walking away. It’s not like he did anything to warrant trust, but it still irritates him that he can’t control the narrative.

The car ride is quiet, and T.K. kind of wants to say something, but there’s nothing he can say to make his dad less bothered. He sips his coffee. He’s already on his fourth cup, and the liquid in his mouth keeps him from saying something stupid. Owen says nothing, grips the steering wheel, and doesn’t even curse Austin traffic. Just sits in his upset.

They go into work, and T.K.’s already frazzled nerves are prodded by Marjan offering cookies. He tells her no, of course. “I baked them myself,” she explains. Marjan has been on a baking kick, so she’s been bringing all kinds of temptations that never fail to sour T.K.’s mood.

“It’s too early for sweets.” They’re oatmeal cookies, and T.K. tells himself that he doesn’t want one. _I hate oatmeal anyway._ They have cinnamon chips in them, but one would be around 120 calories. A small one might be around 110, but either way, T.K. can’t justify it, especially when he just had that fight with his dad. **You lose control when you can’t count anymore.**

Paul takes a cookie. “It’s never too early for sweets.” **It’s always too early for sweets. The minute you eat something that junky, you’re setting yourself up for failure. Don’t let temptation destroy you.**

Mateo agrees with Paul. “These are pretty much the best cookies I’ve ever had.”

Marjan rolls her eyes. “You say that about every cookie.” If T.K. allowed himself to have cookies, he’d be like Mateo. He’d love all the cookies. But he can’t have cookies, so it doesn’t really matter, anyway.

Mateo shrugs. “I don’t play favorites.”

“Until there’s one of Grace’s chocolate chip cookies in the room,” Judd chimes in, grabbing another cookie like it’s normal to thoughtlessly a couple of cookies.

“Nothing compares to them.”

T.K. doesn’t see why people liked chocolate chip cookies that much. Yeah, they may taste good, but they are so basic. At 80 calories, for a two-inch cookie, they aren’t worth the calories. You can eat one in just a couple of bites, and then, you’re left feeling disappointed that you’ve wasted so many calories in less than a minute. T.K.’s grandma used to make him chocolate chip cookies before she died. They were pretty much the only thing that she could make, and she’d make them specifically for him because he’d said that he liked them once. _Then, she died when I was eight, and Dad barely made the funeral._

_I really want a cookie._ **It hasn’t been twenty-four hours yet, fatty. If you can’t even follow your own rules, you won’t ever be useful to anyone.**

Everyone notices that something is off when Owen doesn’t engage in his usual banter and spends more time in his office, and with how brooding T.K. is, it’s obvious what the issue is. They keep things professional. They do their work as they are intended and the calls are answered without any hitches, but the mood during downtime is off-kilter. T.K. spends whatever time he can working out. It’s a slow day, so they haven’t had a lot of emergencies. Paul is looking at T.K. with that look he used when he was trying to figure people out, and T.K. wants to strip off his skin and get one that perceptive people can’t see right through. He feels beyond naked.

“Are you okay?” Paul finally asks when he’s done making T.K. feel like a paper mache volcano at a fifth-grade science fair.

T.K. doesn’t put his weights down, even though his arm feels weak. **That’s why you work out… so your arm doesn’t feel weak, dummy.**

“It doesn’t help to overtrain. Maybe you should take a break for lunch.”

“You break for lunch If you’re so hungry,” T.K. snaps. It’s 12:04, and T.K. knows that Owen is going to come in at any minute and start to subtly pester him into eating, but he’s not going to do it until the clock strikes 1:30 because that’s safely past the twenty-four-hour mark.

Before Paul can respond, Owen’s at the doorway. “T.K. can I see you a moment.” T.K. knows his dad isn’t looking for a casual chat. He sits down in a chair across Owen’s desk, crossing his arms.

Owen plops a sandwich in front of him. “What is this?”

“Lunch.” He hates that word. _Lunch, what kind of stupid meal is that? People have better things to do midday than eat._

“I’m not eating this.” A sandwich, that was a joke. Two pieces of bread with a bunch of crap in between just didn’t feel right to T.K.

“It’s lunchtime.” He did say that he would eat lunch, and he is planning on it, but he isn’t going to do it like this. _Not when I’m so close to twenty-four hours._

“I’m not eating it now.” **Make it to twenty-four hours or everything will go to hell.**

“You said you would eat lunch.”

“At one-thirty I will.”

Owen doesn’t look appeased. “What difference does it make when you eat it?” T.K.’s saved by the bell again when the alarm goes off.

Owen sighs. “Let's go.”

The call is a false alarm from some lady who thought the apartment above her was on fire. They still weren’t clear on _why_ she thought that because there hadn’t even been any smoke, but whatever, T.K. doesn’t care. The call and all the procedures that came after took up enough time that by the time Owen brings up the sandwich again, it’s after 1:30, and T.K.’s appetite isn’t strong, but he can’t afford to have a blow-up in front of the station, so he sits down at the table, and unwraps the plastic.

T.K. looks at his sandwich and feels disgusted. He goes through the numbers to try to calm himself down, but he only feels worse knowing how much junk is in this. He wishes he’d been able to weight everything out, but again, he can’t do that with everyone hanging around. He knows this brand of bread has, generally, 110 calories per slice. Times two is 220 calories. He’d guess that there are 2 ounces of turkey, which is 108 calories, which he’ll round up to 110, bringing his total so far to 330. There’s one slice of swiss cheese on the sandwich, which probably weighs 1 ounce, meaning it contains 106 calories. He rounds that up to 110, and that brings the count up to 440 calories. The one slice of tomato is probably only a few calories, but he counts it as 25 to be safe. The lettuce he guesses to be 5. It’s better to overestimate than underestimate. Thus, the sandwich is around 465 calories. **You lose control when you can’t count anymore.** He rounds up to 500 to be extra safe because maybe there’s something in there that he isn’t aware of. **This is too much. You should be eating better after eating that awful salad yesterday. You’re two pounds up. You can’t afford to be sloppy.** If it takes him ten minutes to will himself to take a bite, no one has to know. He acts like he’s just happy go lucky T.K., getting distracted as he talks too much and tries to get everyone else to laugh.

He eats half the sandwich before he decides that today isn’t an eating day. Most workdays are, but this one has been ruined by the day before. He rips the sandwich up as much as he can to make it look picked over, and bundles it up in his napkin before throwing it away. _**Wow, wasn’t lunch so fun?**_ Owen doesn’t look happy at how much lunch T.K. ate, but he doesn’t say anything, and things remain quiet until dinner. The only one who tries to talk to T.K. beyond work functions is Buttercup, and to be honest, T.K. is thankful.

The day goes from bad to worse when T.K. realizes that they’re having pasta for dinner, and to say T.K.’s not okay with that is like saying that cannibalism is just sort of bad. If he’s going to have a grain, it’s going to be rice or oatmeal, not the sickening food that is pasta. There’s not a good reason why those are the ones that he would choose, but pasta just seems _fattening._ Especially because this pasta is white. It should at least be whole grain. At least whole grain has nutrients.

Owen isn’t having any pasta because he’s clearly keto again after his Big Mac yesterday, which is so hypocritical. He’s having some cauliflower dish instead, which seems unfair because there are so many fewer calories in cauliflower than pasta. Owen’s allowed to go on a dumb, restrictive diet, but when T.K. tries to make dietary changes, Owen is suddenly all into carbs. **This is why you can’t listen to him. He doesn’t know the first thing about health.**

T.K.’s only put some salad on his plate, and he’s trying to contemplate what to do about this situation because, at 200 calories per 56 grams, pasta adds up quickly without you meaning for it to, and T.K.’s always had trouble judging a serving size just by eye. There was also garlic bread, which T.K. thinks is so dumb because why would a person in their right mind have two white carbs in one meal. _I can’t do this. I can’t be here, but it will look weird if I don’t eat._

Mateo offers him some pasta, and T.K. immediately feels suspicious, even though he’s just passing around the bowl like a normal person does when they’re sharing a meal. **He’s trying to make you fat. He sees that you already have a meal, and he wants to plump you up. Don’t let anyone ruin your progress.**

“Why does everyone keep trying to give me food?” he huffs, and he immediately feels like the dumbest person alive because this is exactly the kind of behavior that won’t allow his **non-issues** to fly under the radar. **Can you think before you act for just one moment in your life?**

Owen is clenching his jaw, and everyone else seems shocked by the outburst. “They’re just trying to be nice, T.K.,” Owen says when no one else seems to have an idea of how to respond because they don’t know how much stress he feels just seeing that stupid bowl of white pasta.

He feels Judd nudging him with his elbow. He’s been thinking too long. “You okay, man?”

He tries to stay cool. “Yeah, fine.” _Dizzy with worry that’s what I am. I can’t even think with the smells and sights of this food haunting me. My brain is foggy at the thought, and I don’t know what to do._

Mateo looks apologetic. _I’m the worst human alive. I’m shitty and rude and nasty. I don’t deserve my job here or to have people who care about me._ **You got that right.** “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you upset.” _He shouldn’t even have to apologize._

“You didn’t,” T.K. assures him, and it’s a lie, but it’s a merciful one. All of T.K.’s lies are for good reasons, even if the recipients of the lies don’t agree. He takes the bowl, and he scoops a spoonful of pasta onto his plate. He forces a smile. “I’m just being moody.” Now, he’s stuck with a lump of pasta on his plate and a bigger lump on his throat. He can barely breathe let alone swallow food, but somehow, he’s going to have to pick up a fork and eat. He knows that he will do this. He always does when he’s at the station, but it’s never something he doesn’t think about. He finds the strength to pick up his fork, and it feels like he’s picking up a car with his pinky finger. **Don’t do this to yourself. You’re going to fat and be unlovable.** He spears the pasta with his fork, and he didn’t put any sauce on it, but it looks dreadfully unappetizing. He manages a bite, and then he manages a few more. Before he knows it, his whole serving is gone because of sheer willpower.

He doesn’t know how much he’s eaten. **You lose control when you can’t count anymore.**

The food irritates his stomach, and he wants it to be gone. He wants to drag himself out of his chair and puke it all up so he can stop thinking about what he’s just done, but he can’t puke safely here. He’s got to sit with this feeling and let it consume his addled mind. Everyone is talking around him, but he can’t hear him. All he can hear is the whir of his own brain, sending cool air into the boiling sea of self-hate and dread. The air only hits the top of his head, so he’s still drowning in the heat, trying to doggy paddle his way above the water, but it burns him. It blisters his eyes and scars his brain so that he can’t see how messed up this all is. This volcanic unrest in his brain is devastating, but he can’t try to calm it because he’s too busy trying to please it so that it won’t drag him under until all his flesh is charred and drops from his body, feeding the disaster.

T.K. starts counting. He thinks of his weight. He thinks about what he ate yesterday. He thinks about what he ate today. He thinks about what he’ll eat tomorrow. He goes through the calories in his favorite foods and the ones he hates but eats anyway because they’re safe. He tallies how much pasta he’s eaten and the salad too. He thinks of his half turkey sandwich and the six cups of coffee. He tries to count the number of days that his life has been like this. But he can’t remember.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this installment.


	3. The Road You Take Alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carlos tries not to let his mental health spiral.

Carlos isn’t used to waking up to an empty bed, and he misses hitting a limb when he stretches his body too far onto the other side. Even though T.K. still technically lives with his dad, he’s been spending a good deal of time at Carlos’. Carlos has gotten used to having him around, so when he’s gone, it’s too quiet, and Carlos can hear his thoughts rage in the stiff air of his mind, forming hard peaks like beaten egg whites. His thoughts are becoming unruly. They’re angry and anxious. **You’ll never be happy,** they tell him. **Something will always make you feel dissatisfied. Things always go wrong, and you never know when the awfulness will strike, so you have to be prepared for all the badness that will come. If you aren’t prepared, bad things will happen.**

His head pounds as the thoughts crescendo. His bed is lumpy under his body and his sheets are oddly scratchy. Usually, his bed is a safe little oasis, and the worrying doesn’t start until his feet reach the floor, but his thoughts are bolder today; they have no regard for those blessed moments of aimless contemplation that he loves so much. **There’s no time for you to be tranquil. The world is unhinged, and you’ve got to find a way to fix it, or at least your little part of it.** _I just want to relax._ **No time for that. You’ve got to start your day.** _Five more minutes._ **Start your day.** _Two more minutes._ **Start your day.** _One more minute._ **I won’t say it again: start your day.**

There’s so much he has to do, he knows that, but his mental to-do list is disjointed like building blocks after a child has torn them and scattered them across the room during a tantrum. He needs to piece them back together, but it takes so much energy just to do that let alone tackle the items on the list. The world is an overwhelming place when you can’t even process your own thoughts. _I need to get going or I’m going to waste the entire day._ **Listen to yourself. You’ve got to hurry up and get something done before you give up on trying.** _I can do this. Getting my shit together can’t be that hard, can it?_

Order is not something that Carlos likes to do; it is something he has to do. _It keeps me from losing my head._ Nothing feels right when left to chance, so each morning, he shakes the question marks as well as he can. He plans and he prepares for the day ahead. He lists the things that are likely to go wrong, and he thinks of ways he’ll address them when they happen. He reminds himself that he can handle the obstacles because, at one time or another, he has prepared for them all. But there are too many variables, and you cannot alphabetize a list if you don’t know the first letters of the items on that list. You can make deductions and guesses, but you can’t _know._ It is fruitless to try to control the inevitable mystery that comes with being alive, but Carlos tries. If he thinks about a thought long enough, he can work it to death. Once it’s dead, he can feel okay. _For a while._

He’s got his thoughts under control most of the time. He’s learned to work through them efficiently, shoving them out of the way each morning and each night before they can drag him too far down into the abyss of rumination. While he’s taught himself to work through them quickly, some days, thoughts are sticky. They are gum glued to the ground with superglue, waiting for an unsuspecting shoe. The thoughts cling to his mind, oozing over the information he actually needs, and he has to work just a little bit harder to scrape them off of the walls of his brain.

Thank god people couldn’t see thoughts because if they could, they’d see that Carlos’ thoughts are twisted remnants of what thoughts should be. They’re the warped pieces of metal left after a plane crash— they don’t have much function, but their sharp edges can cut you. He doesn’t want today to be one of those days that brings those destructive thoughts to the forefront of his brain, but Carlos feels darkness sneaking into his brain with about as much stealth as a cat with a giant bell weighing down her steps. Somedays, it slips in without a trace, but it doesn’t matter because no matter how it comes, it always gets in.

He wishes he didn’t have the day off work. The space in his schedule leaves too much room for intrusion. Distraction has always been the thing that keeps Carlos sane. Work, working out, going out with friends are some of the things that keep him on his toes and feeling level. Distraction can’t take away all the darkness, but it can hold it away until it finally crawls back into bed with Carlos one quiet morning.

He should have known that the darkness would come on like this. _The darkness_ – that’s what he’s always called it, but he isn’t sure whether the name makes it sound worse or better than the clinical name. You wouldn’t expect it from him, the depression, but it’s a familiar foe. He’s usually the one that people use as a strong pillar, and he hates how weak the darkness makes him feel. His depression comes in waves, and it comes unexpectedly. Some things may trigger the depression, sure, but it can come when he’s feeling good, just as it can come when he’s already feeling bad. It usually doesn’t last long, but it waxes and wanes and hangs over him even when he can’t see it.

 **It’s time to get up,** his brain persists, urging him to suck up the lowness in his core and get on with what he has to do. **Stop lazing around and do something. You could get so much done today if you just did it. Why are you like this? What’s stopping you other than yourself? Do something. Anything.**

He drags his feet over the side of the bed, and the ground comes against his heels too fast, and he has to balance himself to not tumble back into bed. _Oh, but I’m tempted. I could give in to the urge, wrap myself in blankets, and close myself off to the world._ As the urge to do nothing calls to Carlos, his need for order also beckons. He has a routine for a reason because that routine keeps him from spiraling. One missed part of his routine can turn into pacing his apartment for two hours replaying his whole morning in his head to catch any discrepancies.

 _Somehow, I’ve got to get through this day._ Carlos has learned that when a day seems impossible, you have to take it one step at a time, but he’s never been a one step at a time kind of guy. He’s good at taking tiny, careful steps because they feel safe and require the precision he’s programmed himself to give, but those baby steps grate on him. They bring out the obsession and make him exert way too much energy for what should be easy. He becomes consumed by little details that shouldn’t matter until he can’t think anymore.

The perk of a small apartment is that it doesn’t take long to pull his body to the kitchen and drag his feet down the stairs. Carlos feels like a robot as he prepares breakfast. Prepares is a strong word for what he does, but on days like today, pulling a toaster pastry from a shiny aluminum packet counts as preparation. The treat should taste like cinnamon sugar, but it’s cardboard against his tongue. He finishes it, and then he eats its waiting twin because he knows that’s what he _should_ do. He washes his breakfast down with instant coffee that looks and tastes like mud.

He doesn’t have to clean the dishes because he’ll use the mug for more coffee when he’s showered, but even though he ate neatly and didn’t make much of a mess, he wipes down the counters as he usually does to simulate a normal day. _Because I need to act normal._ **You’ll never be normal.** _But I can try._

After he cleans up breakfast, fatigue pulls at his eyes. _I could just go back to bed. I have nothing to else to do, so I might as well just give up. What else am I going to do with my time?_ Going back to bed won’t make him feel any less tired, though, so he decides to force himself into the shower. He stands under the hot stream, letting it purify his thoughts more than his body. He stands there until the hot turns cold, and he’s so deep in his thoughts that he doesn’t notice the change until his teeth begin chattering.

Carlos forces himself into new clothes, and he doesn’t know what to do next. He’s restless. **You have so much to do. Your life is a mess. Start by trying to clean that up, and then, we’ll go from there. If you can’t get your act together, you’re hopeless.** _Cleaning— I can handle that._

Cleaning isn’t Carlos’ idea of fun, but it seems like the natural solution to messiness, and maybe if he can get his living space spruced up, he can sort out the clutter in his head. He’s diligent when he cleans. He doesn’t just scrub surfaces; he uses three different products to make sure every square inch is wiped off as well as humanly possible. It probably doesn’t make much of a difference, but putting so much effort into something keeps his brain from scrambling. He dusts every crevice, and he vacuums using all the attachments to make sure no corner goes untouched. He even wipes down the bottom of his table just because he can imagine how much dirtiness must be under there. Cleaning is just the right amount of mind-numbing to pass the time without making Carlos have to think too hard. Since he’s cleaning, Carlos decides, what the hell, he might as well do some laundry, knocking all the dirty details of life off his list. Getting stuff done normally feels good, but Carlos doesn’t feel much of anything.

The morning blurs into the afternoon, and Carlos only notices the difference when his mom calls just a little after one. Carlos dreads the conversation as much as he’s glad that it will give him something to do. Carlos loves his mom, but she doesn’t stop talking whenever she calls, and she usually comes to him to vent. He doesn’t think she realizes that she’s doing it, and mostly he doesn’t mind, but he’s already feeling drained. Even with tiredness pulling at his brain, he answers the phone because it’s his mother, and how can he not answer the phone? She won’t stop calling until he responds, anyway, so he might as well get it over with. “ **Get it over with,” what a way to talk about your mother. You can’t try to be just a little nicer? She gave birth to you. The least you can do is listen to her. How much energy could it possibly take? Suck it up and do your job as a son.**

His mom’s worked up about Carlos’ brothers’ grades. She gets worked up about his brothers a lot, and it’s not so much that the twins do anything that wrong. Mostly, they’re her last babies, and Ana is having a hard time accepting that all her children have become adults. Carlos’ brothers have never been academic, and he knows no matter what Ana says to them, they’re not going to change. “There’s something wrong. They’re not as diligent as you were,” Ana complains. “I don’t know why they’re so easily distracted.” Carlos wants to tell her, _Of course, they aren’t as diligent as I am. They’re not anxious nutcases who try to be angels to keep from causing any negative emotions in other people. They don’t have to be diligent because they’re allowed to be regular kids. They aren’t responsible for their mother’s emotional balance._ “They’re smart kids, but they’d much rather make jokes than do their work.”

“That’s hard,” Carlos tries to sympathize, “but they’re hardly kids anymore. They’re in college. You can’t micromanage their grades. I know it’s a challenge for you, but sometimes, you need to let go a little bit. You’ll always be their mother. College isn’t going to change anything.”

Ana tuts, “They still live in my home. They’ll follow my rules. They shouldn’t disrespect their mother. I may not be educated, but that doesn’t mean I’m a fool. I know plenty. It would serve them to remember that. I’ve been on this earth over a half-century!” Carlos’ mom has always been insecure about her lack of higher education. She’d always been good in school, but going to college had not been in the cards for her, and now, she feels lesser with all her children having more education than her. She’s proud of them, Carlos knows— she’s always been so proud of her children— but he can tell that she thinks about all the things she might’ve done if she’d found a way to go to college. In most areas, Ana is confident, but in others, she’s full of insecurity. _Maybe that’s how all people are. A bit of confidence and a world of insecurities._

Carlos is quick to reassure Ana, “No one thinks you’re a fool. We know how smart you are, but when you’re young, the wisdom of your mother isn’t that appealing. They’re probably just trying to find themselves. They’re testing their limits, and it won’t always turn out well for them, but they’ll learn. They’ll come back to you when they need your help.” Carlos doesn’t know that. He’s not a psychiatrist, but it sounds like the right thing to say. Ana probably won’t see it that way, though. **She never sees things your way, and I don’t blame her. You’re crazy and unstable and act like you’ve got it all under control when you can’t even reassure your own mother properly. What good are you if you can’t accomplish the one thing you’ve been practicing for pretty much all of your life? Get it together Carlos.**

Ana goes on, and Carlos knows the conversation has only just started, but he already wants to make an excuse about why he can’t talk any longer. _But I can’t do that to her._ “I’ve indulged all their interests. It wasn’t easy, but I made sure they could do all the sports they wanted. All I ask is that they keep their grades up, and I don’t like that they aren’t keeping their end of the bargain. I’ve made sacrifices, so many sacrifices.” Carlos always felt a pang of guilt for all the things his mother had sacrificed. They’d never had a lot of money, and Ana had given everything for her children so that they could have whatever opportunities they wanted.

All his life, Carlos has tried not to take too much. _I need to be careful what I ask for. If I can’t get it myself, I shouldn’t have it at all._ He’d gotten a job as soon as he could. He’s saved his money and paid for as many of his own expenses as possible. She’d never asked him to do it, but he knew how much she gave to her children, and he never wanted the burden of depriving his mother. He hated to see her not having the things she wanted because of her children, so he made a vow to pave his own way. Yet, she’s still given him so much that she will never make him give back. **And you don’t deserve any of it. What have you done to deserve it other than being a bitter son who resents his saint of a mother?**

He knows that way she makes him feel isn’t normal, and it probably isn’t healthy, but it’s too late to set boundaries, and he knows that she isn’t doing it on purpose. He feels selfish whenever the bitterness pops up. **She loves you unconditionally. How can you be mad at that? What kind of a monster resents his mother who has only tried to give him the best? She’s not perfect, but no person is, so why hold her to some unachievable standard. There must be something wrong with you if you cannot accept her how she is. She’s not the problem— you are.**

“I know, Mamá, but it’s normal for them to want to stray from the nest.” Ana would never be the kind of mother who took a back seat, even as her kids grew up and started families of their own. So much of her identity is centered around caring for her family, and the changing way she cares for them has made her feel like she’s lost her purpose. She’s one of the most self-sacrificing people that Carlos knows, and even when she’s given all that she could possibly give to her children, she wants to give more.

“You never did. You were always such a good boy.” _At what cost? I tried so hard to be what you wanted that I forgot how to be myself._ Until he had joined the police academy, Carlos had been unsure of what he wanted. What his mother wanted for him had become such a big part of his mindset that it drowned out what he wanted for himself. He became a chameleon to please her, to boost her confidence, and make her feel like a successful mother, and it was hard to learn to be himself again, which is why sometimes he feels better when he keeps a distance from Ana. He loves her, and he’ll always be close to her, but he also needs a life of his own, or he will go crazy.

“I’m a different person, so I needed different experiences. There’s nothing wrong with that. It just shows that we all have different abilities.” _We all don’t feel like we have to change ourselves to be what other people want._ “The twins are fine.” They’ve never been that into academics, and they are mostly still in school to continue with sports, so Carlos never expected them to get good grades. “They’re not failing, are they?”

“No, but they can do better.” _Not while being happy,_ Carlos wants to argue. He doesn’t want his little brothers to go through the same turmoil that he has.

“You can’t force it.” Carlos knows better that the more you try to force something, the more out of control you become. **Not that knowing that stops you from trying to force control. You can’t help it, can you Carlos? You keep trying to capture something that was never meant to be held. You’ll always come out a loser like that.**

“I know that, Carlos, but maybe you should talk to them.” _I should have known that this is where the conversation was headed. She always wants me to be the voice of reason, the cool older brother who gives them wisdom that they wouldn’t listen to if it comes from their mother._

Carlos tries to keep the agitation out of his voice. “And say what?” He shakes his head, but she obviously can’t see it. “They’re not going to listen to me either. They think I’m uptight.” Carlos’ family always jokes that he should relax a little, and he does relax. He can be spontaneous and flexible, but it’s harder to be that way in front of his family because they’ve come to rely on his rigidity, his ability to never bend under pressure. It’s all just a façade, but they don’t need to know that. _They don’t need to know about the insanity in my head. They would look at me differently if they knew, and I can’t afford their perception of me to change._ He’s afraid of what they would think if they knew the truth. What would his mom do if she knew that Carlos wasn’t okay all the time? She would probably blame herself, and Carlos couldn’t have that.

He imagines coming clean, sometimes. It is so lonely to handle the weight of his dysfunction on his own. He likes to fantasize about blurting everything wrong out in one go and not giving a damn what everyone thinks. It would be cathartic, and he wouldn’t feel like he has to hide so many parts of himself because that’s what he is doing. He’s hiding because it’s easy to hide than to own his imperfections. He doesn’t want anyone to see him as broken, especially when they sp desperately need him to be solid.

“They do not see you that way. They look up to you. You’re their big brother. They’ll listen to you. Just tell them to shape up. I’m worried about them.”

“That’s a bad idea. I don’t want to get in the middle of this.” As the oldest boy, Carlos usually takes his role as an older brother in stride, but he’s so exhausted, and he doesn’t think there’s anything he can say that will please everyone involved, least of all himself. He’s not up for handling this family drama, especially when he doesn’t really understand what the drama is. “I don’t think it will help for me to say anything,” Carlos adds so he sounds less defiant, but he’s got to hold his ground on this one thing or he’ll be sucked into a mindset that makes his obsessions and his worries worse.

He hears Ana sighing loudly on the other end of the phone, “Do you think one of your sisters can talk sense into them?”

“Mamá, I don’t think anyone is going to change their minds. They need to take the initiative for themselves.” _But she won’t listen to me on that. She can be so stubborn sometimes, and I don’t know how to make her hear what I’m saying._ **You might as well give up talking because she’s never going to change.**

To Carlos’ surprise, his mother laughs. “You sound so much like your father sometimes, Carlos. He always believed that you kids would sort yourselves out if we gave you the room to experiment.” He can hear her smiling over the phone. She always smiles when she talks about Carlos’ dad. “I was never able to be like that. I worry too much. You’re all my babies, you know. Even now that you’re old. I remember holding you in my arms. You were a big baby, but even a big baby is so tiny. I was afraid the world would break you.”

“I got stronger,” Carlos says,

“You were always a sensitive kid. I’m glad you grew out of it. The world is hard on sensitive kids. And foolish ones. Your brothers are foolish ones. They’ve got a lot of ambition. They’ve got good ideas, but they have no sense about how cruel the world can be. You’ve seen the bad. You saw your father’s flaws more than they did. He gave you kids your freedom, but he liked things a certain way.”

“We don’t have to talk about this.” It isn’t that Carlos minds talking about his dad, but he knows a conversation like this can cause his mother to spiral. She tries to hide her mental distress when it happens, but Carlos sees it. **Like mother like son** _._ He notices the way she becomes quiet and the way her eyes are red more than they aren’t.

“I want to,” she admits. “Your father could become… withdrawn.” **Your freakshow comes from both sides then, huh?** “He’d focus on one thing, and everything else would become background noise. You and Glo were old enough to see that.”

“I remember, but that’s not how I remember him. I remember him cooking us meals and running around with us at the park. I remember him reading us books and helping us imagine our futures. I remember hugs when we were scared and soup when we were sick. Everyone has bad days, but Papá’s were mostly good.” _Some people are better at hiding bad days than others, but we all have them, especially in my family._

“I never told you kids how he died.” Carlos can barely stand to hear how choked his mother’s voice is. It sends a ripple of fear through him.

Carlos feels his heart skip a beat. He’s not sure why she’s bringing this up now, but nothing that she’s saying is a surprise. She’s never said the words. She’s refused to admit that their father didn’t die in his sleep, but the kids all know. There’s a quiet understanding between them that he’d drunk himself to death. Carlos had never really seen his dad his drunk. His dad had always kept his addiction secret, but there had been signs. Looking back, he always knew. Everyone around them knew, but they didn’t mutter the words. They kept what was behind closed doors behind closed doors, _and that never helps anyone._

“We know,” Carlos says so his mother doesn’t have to say it. She’s been denying the true cause of death for over a decade, and Carlos is afraid of what will happen if she says the words out loud. It’s why no one in his family has ever brought it up. “Glo and I figured it out.”

“He wasn’t a bad man.” Carlos only ever saw the part of him that was good. **Come on, you knew. You always knew. You pretended you didn’t, but it was clear as day that your dad had a problem, and you should have done something about it. You should put the pieces together sooner and tried to do something about it. Now, he’s not a good man or a bad man; he’s a dead man.**

“I know. He was sick,” Carlos says. _Just like me. Just like you. Just like all of us._ “He did the best he could.”

“I wanted to protect you from it,” Ana says, and Carlos isn’t sure if she’s trying to justify the lies or is slipping back into the delusion. _No, you wanted to protect yourself,_ he wants to shout, but he bites his tongue because he’s not going to fight with a woman who tried to give him everything in her power. Making her unhappy wasn’t going to make him happier.

“It’s okay, Mamá. You did the best you could. You don’t have to be sorry,” and just like that, he absolves her. He always absolves her, even if it means condemning himself. **Isn’t that just what a decent son is supposed to do?**

When his mother is done talking, Carlos hangs up the phone. He stops fighting the thoughts growing louder in his brain. He gives in to the urge he’s been resisting all day, and he goes back to bed. _Because what’s the point of staying up any more. What else do I have to do?_ Sleeping will make the day go quicker, and right now, that’s what Carlos needs.

When Carlos wakes up, he doesn’t feel refreshed. He’s still thinking about the conversation he had with his mother, and he thinks that maybe he should call his brothers after all, but he doesn’t. Instead, he calls his oldest sister, Gloria, because as the oldest sibling, she knows very well how it feels to be given more responsibility than you are prepared to carry. “Did Mamá call you?” Carlos asks after a brief greeting.

Gloria laughs, “She called me first. It was unusual. You know you’re the favorite.” **You’re only the favorite when something goes wrong and needs fixing.**

“You know that’s no true.” _If I am the favorite, it’s because there’s so much of me that I hide. She’s only seen the parts of Carlos Reyes that she needs to see. I’ve buried all the rest because doing so will make her happier._ Carlos knows that if his mother knew that he’s not as level-headed as he pretends to be, she wouldn’t feel the same way about him. She wouldn’t turn to him for help, and she wouldn’t talk to him as openly. Telling the truth could destroy the relationship with his loved ones as he knows it, so he chooses to keep silent.

“You’re all she can talk about with her friends. She’s so proud.”

“She’s proud of us all,” Carlos assures his sister.

“That’s what favorite children always say,” Gloria teases.

“You can take a turn being the favorite, Glo. She wants me to talk to Gabe and Dave again. Their grades aren’t high enough for her liking.”

“You set the bar too high and now the poor kids are expected to be straight-A students.”

“Like you were any better.”

“Maybe not,” Gloria says, “But she knows they have trouble in school. David especially.”

“Meanwhile, Gabriel is the one who jokes through his studies.” Gabriel distracts David, who has a hard enough time focusing on his studies in the best of circumstances, so having the two boys together can do more harm than good.

“You didn’t call to talk about the twins, did you?” Gloria asks astutely.

“No,” Carlos admits. “I’m not interested in trying to get their grades up. As long as they're not failing and doing decently well, I don’t see a need to get involved.” He can be honest with Gloria because he knows that she feels the same way that he does.

“Why did you call then?” Her voice is gentle, and it reminds Carlos of when his mom used to sing him to sleep.

Carlos sighs. “I don’t know. I guess I just wanted to check-in. I’m worried about Mamá.”

“She seems okay,” Gloria reassures him.

“She talked about the way Papá really died today, Glo.” There’s a long pause, and Carlos can hear his sister breathing over the phone, but she doesn’t say anything. “Glo? You still there,” he adds to try to get her to reply.

“She actually said the words?”

Carlos’ brain sinks a little. “Well, no. She didn’t say it explicitly, but she admitted that she never told us the truth about what happened.”

Gloria sounds indignant, “As if we didn’t know. The denial has never been for us.”

“I know that.” He crosses his arms over his chest like a petulant child.

“Did you tell her that?” Gloria’s voice has raised just enough that Carlos knows this conversation has gone off course. He doesn’t know why he chose to do this to himself, on a bad day especially. He doesn’t have the energy, but since it’s too late to get out of the situation, he has to find it. When he needs to, he can always embezzle it from other parts of himself that need less upkeep. When he has bad days, sacrifices must be made.

Gloria sounds annoyed now. “Of course, you didn’t. You never tell her how you feel.”

“What does it matter to you?” It’s his life and his feelings. He can tell them to whoever he wants.

“Because you shouldn’t censor yourself anytime she has a mood. She’s not going to stop having them just because you cater to her and I know it’s a lot for you to manage. You’re not responsible for protecting someone else from themselves.” But that’s what Carlos has always done. He’s a protector by nature, and when he sees someone in trouble, he steps in.

“Be nice. She’s your mother.” Gloria’s frustration with her mother is obvious. It’s not that she’s not sympathetic, but she’s never experienced what Gloria has experienced. _She doesn’t understand how hard it is to rise above your bad days._

“And I love her, but she needs professional help. Too much of her life is centered around being our mother. She can’t rely on us to fill in all her gaps. She needs a life of her own. I hate seeing her when she gets bad, and she’ll keep getting bad unless she decides to make a change.” If Ana knew that she was talking about her this way, it would devastate her, and just the thought of her overhearing this conversation makes Carlos want to end it, but he lets Gloria say her piece.

“Well, that’s never going to happen.” That’s the problem. He knows that she’s never going to seek help on her home, so it’s either he tries and fails to help her or he doesn’t try at all. Trying feels better than doing nothing.

“So what then? You have to be whatever makes Mamá happy?” _Isn’t that what I’ve been? How can I be anyone else at this point? She needs me, and I can’t let her down._ Carlos knows that they don’t have healthy boundaries, but that’s just how his family is.

“I don’t always choose what Mamá wants.” For as many concessions he makes with her, there are some that he is unwilling to let her cross for his own sanity. “She didn’t like the idea of me being gay.”

“She always accepted your sexuality.” That’s the simple way of putting it. His mom has never been anything but supportive. When he told her, she hugged him and said that she loved him no matter who he loved, but he had always had a feeling that her initial acceptance had been because it would make her a bad mother not to accept him, and being a good mother is the thing that she has always most wanted to be, often to the point of too closely resembling the stereotypical image of a mother.

“I know she always loved me just the same, but it took time for her to get used to it.” He doesn’t remember her saying bad things about gay people, but he had seen her smile fall just a fraction when he told her the truth.

“She’ll get used to other things, too. Your relationship with her can evolve if you let it. It might be better for everyone.”

“I can’t stop worrying about her.” The worry is lodged in his mind. It is one of his oldest friends, and no matter how far he goes, it is part of him. He’s spent so long concerned about his mother that not exhausting so much energy worrying would leave a hole in his life. As messed up as it is, he doesn’t know who he is without his fears. If he let them go, even just some of them, he thinks that things might get even worse. No one else seems to understand the way he needs to indulge the worry to feel safe.

“And I’m not asking you to, but you don’t have to deal with everything alone, hermanito.”

“Yeah maybe,” Carlos says because he’s too tired to argue with her about her. “I’ve got to go Glo,” he says as an escape from the conversation. “T.K. is calling.”

“Okay, Carlos, go talk to your man. I love you.” He’s lucky to have Glo. She’s always trying to look after him when he’s trying to look after everyone else.

“I love you too. Talk soon,” he says before hanging up and putting the phone beside him. The phone is silent now, and he misses the noise, but he is relieved that he doesn’t have to listen anymore just the same.

He lays back on his couch and flips the TV on. He turns to his favorite crime drama, the one that got him interested in law enforcement, but he doesn’t pay attention. He lets the scenes pass through his brain mindlessly without leaving a dent in his memory. He stays there for hours, only getting up when he’s hungry or needs to use the bathroom. He lets the hours blur until his mind is so numbed that he needs to do something just to remember there’s a world outside his apartment.

To find a connection to the outside world, Carlos has T.K. over in the evening because starting the next morning, T.K. has to work for two days, and Carlos doesn’t want to wait that long to see him even though he’s not in the mood to be around people.

When Carlos opens the door to his apartment, T.K. throws his arms around Carlos. He tilts his head up for a kiss. He smells sweet, and maybe time with his boyfriend is exactly what T.K. needs. “You don’t know how glad I am to see you.” T.K.’s hold is firm and the weight of T.K. against his chest knocks out the breath that Carlos has been holding.

“Long day?” Carlos asks. T.K. opens his mouth, but he looks at Carlos’ face and closes it again; T.K. swallows hard, pushing the words on the tip of his tongue down to his stomach. **He can tell that something is wrong with you. Get your act together. He doesn’t want to hear about all your issues. Keep that shit to yourself and don’t bother your boyfriend about it.**

T.K. says, “You look tired.” Tired was too light of a word for the utter depletion Carlos felt in his bones. **You’re so whiny. Could you shut up for just five seconds? You’re giving me a migraine.**

 **He’s not going to like that answer because for some reason he wants to learn everything about you, even the worst parts of Carlos Reyes.** “That doesn’t answer my question.” They could circle like this forever, redirecting each other’s words because neither wants to burden the other with what they both try and fail to hide.

Carlos doesn’t miss the way T.K.’s eyes are overcast, but he watches T.K. tug a smile onto his face as he pulls back whatever he might’ve said if he hadn’t noticed that something was off with Carlos. Carlos feels guilty. **You’re the worst boyfriend. You can’t even support him when he needs you.** _I’m trying._ **Not hard enough**. T.K. pecks Carlos’ lips. “I missed you, that’s all,” T.K. adds, and Carlos can’t help but worry that there’s more to it than that. He wonders if his perception is off. Maybe he’s making a lot out of nothing. He tends to do that. **You sure do**.

They order pizza and put on a movie when Carlos can’t find many words. T.K. picks at the pizza and Carlos doesn’t pay attention to the movie. _Aren’t we a fun pair?_ By the time the credits roll on the screen, Carlos has no idea what just happened as T.K. gives his impromptu review of the movie. T.K.’s excitedly talking, and Carlos doesn’t process the words he is saying, but it feels good to hear T.K. being so full of life when Carlos feels so depleted.

“Yeah,” Carlos says distractedly to something that T.K. says. “That’s true.”

T.K. gives Carlos a confused look. He chuckles. “You’re not paying any attention to me, are you?” His voice is light, but it still makes Carlos feel like shit. Guilt spikes in Carlos’ bloodstream. _I should be more attentive when we get to spend time together._

“I’m sorry, Ty.” **How many times can you say “I’m sorry,” before it starts to lose its meaning? It’s always the same old story with you Carlos. Try something new for once. I’m so bored.**

T.K. shakes his head, “Don’t be. You know I don’t mind talking to myself.” _But you shouldn’t have to_ , Carlos wants to say. **_Your boyfriend should be more attentive._**

“I should still listen.” **That’s right you should, but you’re so selfish. You try to do things for other people, but it’s only because you’re greedy for their love.**

“Really, it’s fine. I get it.” **He doesn’t get anything.** “Are you okay?” T.K. asks, and Carlos knows that he should be able to talk about it— the depression, especially. He remembers T.K. telling him once about everything being gray, so he knows T.K. gets how it feels. Carlos’ depression is different than T.K.’s, though. It’s fueled by pathological obsession and worry more than anything else. Still, he thinks T.K. might understand or try to understand more than most people would. He wouldn’t be one of those people who tries to understand and then doesn’t listen. Carlos has met many of those. They hear the word depression, and they start to assume. They think depression is laziness or intense sadness after the loss of a loved one. They think it is just a feeling. “I’m depressed,” they say when they are feeling sad, but they don’t consider what it must like to have depression. It’s not a passing mood Sometimes, they have a deeper understanding, but very few can understand the nuances, and even though T.K. may get how Carlos feels, Carlos doesn’t think he can talk about it. His throat feels like it may close whenever he starts to say the words, so he shuts up.

It’s a strange role-reversal when Carlos tells T.K., “I’m fine.”

T.K. raises his eyebrows, probably because he knows that people who say they are fine are usually lying. “We’re both hypocrites, aren’t we?”

“Yeah? How’s that?”

“We both want honestly about how we are, but we both don’t want to give it.” That might be the closest thing T.K. has been to admitting he’s not fine. It might be the closest he ever will be. Carlos gets it. It’s hard to accept that you might not be okay, especially when other people need you to be okay. It seems simpler to pretend that you’re fine. The thought takes the air from Carlos’ lungs and not in the way that feels like a release.

“I’m not trying to push you to talk about anything, but you know that you can talk to me, right?”

“Of course,” Carlos lies, trying to force a smile.

“Do you need to talk now?” T.K. pushes him just a little further. Carlos shifts his body further from T.K. on the couch, and T.K. sags against the cushions. **Maybe now he knows how he makes you feel all the time,** the malicious part of Carlos thinks.

“No, I’m good.” He can hear the waver in his voice. _I’m so tired, and I can’t shake the drowsiness no matter how hard I try._

“Carlos—” T.K. tries to say, but Carlos will have none of it. He doesn’t want his thoughts or his feelings to be dissected because they’re not something he can share with other people. They’re his alone, and he’s not going to burden anyone else with them if he doesn’t have to.

“Drop it, T.K.” Carlos’ voice is authoritative, and maybe that’s the wrong move because T.K. has never listened much to authority. But to Carlos’ shock, T.K. almost backs down. _Almost_.

T.K. bites the side of his cheek. “I’m just worried.”

“Well don’t be,” Carlos can’t help but say harshly, and he regrets the words the minute they leave his mouth.

He feels hopeless because he wants to make everything better, but there’s no easy fix for not being okay. There’s no way to wake up and immediately exterminate the termites that chew at the core parts of your mind. You have to swim through a boiling, sludgy roux as it begins to curdle and drag you down with its soiled weight. You have to pull back your skin to see what’s happening inside. You have to hope that something changes even when change is an upside-down mountain that you somehow have to climb.

Carlos isn’t sure he has the energy to climb, at least not right now.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you,” T.K. says, sounding sincere, but it irritates Carlos to hear the worry in his voice.

“You don’t have to worry about me,” Carlos insists, taking on a calmer voice. _Try worrying about yourself,_ he wants to tell T.K., _I’m not the one slowly killing myself._ **No, you’re just worrying yourself to death.**

“I’m not an expert, but that’s kind of being in a relationship, isn’t it? Worrying about the other person and wanting to make sure they’re okay.” T.K. puts his arms around Carlos and leans his head up to whisper in Carlos’ ear. “I’m here if you want to talk.” T.K.’s breath is hot in Carlos’ ear, and it warms Carlos to know that he isn’t alone, but it also doesn’t make a difference because there are some things that Carlos needs to keep to himself. He likes to think he’s saving T.K. from the pain of knowing what Carlos struggles with, but deep down, he knows that what keeps his lips pressed shut is the shame that comes with not being the strong, unwavering pillar of support that he wishes he could be. Carlos wants to be that person that doesn’t bend under pressure. He wants to be the effortless kind of okay because most of the time, he is okay, but he has to fight to be that way.

“It’s been a long week,” Carlos admits, but he doesn’t know how to explain the week wasn’t long because it was awful. It’s dragged for no other reason than there’s something off inside Carlos’ brain.

“Jenkins being an asshole again?”

“He’s always an asshole,” Carlos replies about his least-liked coworker. “But no, Jenkins hasn’t been worse than usual. It’s just been hectic,” Carlos explains because that sounds like the most normal reason for not being your normal self.

“How so?” Carlos doesn’t feel like talking, but he doesn’t want to reject the efforts that T.K. is making, so he figures he can just give a little, and maybe that will create harmony between them.

“You know how you have a really busy shift and then when your mind stops being pulled in so many different directions, you get really tired, and then you don’t know what to do with your time?” T.K. nods, encouraging Carlos to go on. “It’s like that. I’m crashing after a long several shifts.”

“But you can handle it?”

“Yeah,” Carlos assures, kissing T.K.’s forehead and running a hand through his hair. “All I need is time to recover before my next shift. It helps to have you here.”

“Babe, I’ll be here whenever you need me to be.” But Carlos would never ask that of T.K. T.K. leans his head on Carlos’ shoulder. “I know how hard your job must be. You see some crazy things on patrol.” The funny thing is that it isn’t mostly the things he sees at work that get to Carlos. There will always be incidents that cut deeply, but for the most part, he’s good at compartmentalizing the bad things that happen on the job.

T.K. sits up and leans closer to Carlos, and he kisses the spot just above his collarbone. His lips are soft and warm from the coffee he’d just had, but Carlos can barely sense the warmth. “Is there something I can do to make it better?”

Carlos cannot tell T.K. how he is feeling because this mental tumult is the road he takes alone. It is a road of shame and self-doubt. It is a road of feeling unprepared for each new day. It is a treacherous road that’s just dirt, rocks, and inclines. Carlos wouldn’t want to bring anyone he loved with him down that road. Yet, he knew they would all go down it if he asked— if they knew it existed. They wouldn’t just go down it with him; they’d help him pave it. They’d help him put guardrails on the edges and streetlights in the dark corners. They’d form a community around the darkness. But Carlos isn’t ready to put his secret little road on the map, so all he can do is try to stay on his feet and continue on a lone journey down the road.

**Author's Note:**

> Had to get this story out of my head so that I could work on other ones haha. My tumblr is lonestarbabe if you want to keep up with me there.


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